Predicting coral species richness: the effect of input variables, diversity and scale.

ABSTRACT: Coral reefs are facing a biodiversity crisis due to increasing human impacts, consequently, one third of reef-building corals have an elevated risk of extinction. Logistic challenges prevent broad-scale species-level monitoring of hard corals; hence it has become critical that effective proxy indicators of species richness are established. This study tests how accurately three potential proxy indicators (generic richness on belt transects, generic richness on point-intercept transects and percent live hard coral cover on point-intercept transects) predict coral species richness at three different locations and two analytical scales. Generic richness (measured on a belt transect) was found to be the most effective predictor variable, with significant positive linear relationships across loc

SUBMITTER: Richards ZT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3893078 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature