Cross-scale habitat structure driven by coral species composition on tropical reefs.

ABSTRACT: The availability of habitat structure across spatial scales can determine ecological organization and resilience. However, anthropogenic disturbances are altering the abundance and composition of habitat-forming organisms. How such shifts in the composition of these organisms alter the physical structure of habitats across ecologically important scales remains unclear. At a time of unprecedented coral loss and homogenization of coral assemblages globally, we investigate the inherent structural complexity of taxonomically distinct reefs, across five ecologically relevant scales of measurement (4-64 cm). We show that structural complexity was influenced by coral species composition, and was not a simple function of coral cover on the studied reefs. However, inter-habitat variation in structu

SUBMITTER: Richardson LE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5548803 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature