Trophic control of cryptic coralline algal diversity.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how trophic dynamics drive variation in biodiversity is essential for predicting the outcomes of trophic downgrading across the world's ecosystems. However, assessing the biodiversity of morphologically cryptic lineages can be problematic, yet may be crucial to understanding ecological patterns. Shifts in keystone predation that favor increases in herbivore abundance tend to have negative consequences for the biodiversity of primary producers. However, in nearshore ecosystems, coralline algal cover increases when herbivory is intense, suggesting that corallines may uniquely benefit from trophic downgrading. Because many coralline algal species are morphologically cryptic and their diversity has been globally underestimated, increasing the resolution at which we distinguish sp

SUBMITTER: Hind KR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6660763 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature