Cross-shelf coral reef biodiversity: does data and ecological theory fit with habitat-based species conservation models?
Abstract
[Truncated abstract] Selection of priority areas for Marine Park conservation is often compromised by the lack of comprehensive biodiversity data and the resources and expertise necessary to gain this information directly by sampling. One cost effective alternative is the use of species groups or indicator species as surrogates for total biodiversity. However use of these surrogates requires an ecological understanding of how they reflect biodiversity gradients. A framework for unravelling these relationships has been suggested that involves relating species biodiversity to different and competing ecological models using appropriate statistical analysis. I use this framework to explore coral species biodiversity over a range of environmental gradients encompassing the North West Shelf of Australia and the Great Barrier Reef in North East Australia. ... I assessed physiological responses of corals to physical factors to corroborate crossshelf patterns in species biodiversity. Finally, I investigated to what extent coral cooccurrence based species groups (or guilds) can be used as surrogates for total coral biodiversity. The major findings of this thesis were: i) coral biodiversity along cross-shelf environments was highly correlated to specific gradients of abiotic reef conditions; ii) larval modelling indicates the potential for significant connectivity across continentalshelf environments such that differences in species distribution are not simply as a result of self…
Read the paper
Related studies
- Characterization and Analysis of Porosity and Pore Structures
- Practical considerations for conducting ecotoxicity test methods with manufactured nanomaterials: what have we learnt so far?
- Dental Optical Coherence Tomography
- Radiation-shielding concrete: A review of materials, performance, and the impact of radiation on concrete properties
- Testing entanglement of annihilation photons
- Calanus finmarchicus seasonal cycle and diapause in relation to gene expression, physiology, and endogenous clocks
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.