Human proximity suppresses fish recruitment by altering mangrove-associated odour cues.

ABSTRACT: Human-driven threats to coastal marine communities could potentially affect chemically mediated behaviours that have evolved to facilitate crucial ecological processes. Chemical cues and their importance remain inadequately understood in marine systems, but cues from coastal vegetation can provide sensory information guiding aquatic animals to key resources or habitats. In the tropics, mangroves are a ubiquitous component of healthy coastal ecosystems, associated with a range of habitats from river mouths to coral reefs. Because mangrove leaf litter is a predictable cue to coastal habitats, chemical information from mangrove leaves could provide a source of settlement cues for coastal fishes, drawing larvae towards shallow benthic habitats or inducing settlement. In choice assays, juvenile

SUBMITTER: Brooker RM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7713406 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature