More coral, more fish? Contrasting snapshots from a remote Pacific atoll.

ABSTRACT: Coral reefs are in decline across the globe as a result of overexploitation, pollution, disease and, more recently, climate change. The impacts of changes in coral cover on associated fish communities can be difficult to predict because of the uneven dependence of reef fish species on corals for food, shelter or the three-dimensional structure they provide. We compared live coral cover, reef fish community metrics, and their associations in two surveys of the lagoon of the remote atoll of Mataiva (French Polynesia) carried out 31 years apart. In contrast to the general pattern of decreasing coral cover reported for many parts of the Indo-Pacific region, live coral cover increased 6-7 fold at Mataiva between 1981 and 2012, and fish density nearly doubled. The stable overall reef fish specie

SUBMITTER: Beldade R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4314088 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature