Coral Reefs Flashcards
Lottery Hypotheses
Reefs composed of generalists
No difference in scaridae species and diet
Reef fishes belong to guilds
High diversity due to unpredictaby of living space
Recruitment or young independent of adult composisition
Larvae are tickets and whichever gets there first wins
Niche diversification
Large niche difference between guilds or families
Small differences in guilds or families
How to test if lottery is correct?
Correlation between coral diversity and fish diversity should be low if lottery is correct
Evidence for niche diversification
Across all coral taxa
Trend of increasing fish diversity with increased coral diversity
This is highest correlation for small bodied fishes
Analysis of RGB of corals show that the colour diversity predicts fish diversity
