scholarly journals Delineating reef fish trophic guilds with global gut content data synthesis and phylogeny

PLoS Biology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. e3000702
Author(s):  
Valeriano Parravicini ◽  
Jordan M. Casey ◽  
Nina M. D. Schiettekatte ◽  
Simon J. Brandl ◽  
Chloé Pozas-Schacre ◽  
...  

Understanding species’ roles in food webs requires an accurate assessment of their trophic niche. However, it is challenging to delineate potential trophic interactions across an ecosystem, and a paucity of empirical information often leads to inconsistent definitions of trophic guilds based on expert opinion, especially when applied to hyperdiverse ecosystems. Using coral reef fishes as a model group, we show that experts disagree on the assignment of broad trophic guilds for more than 20% of species, which hampers comparability across studies. Here, we propose a quantitative, unbiased, and reproducible approach to define trophic guilds and apply recent advances in machine learning to predict probabilities of pairwise trophic interactions with high accuracy. We synthesize data from community-wide gut content analyses of tropical coral reef fishes worldwide, resulting in diet information from 13,961 individuals belonging to 615 reef fish. We then use network analysis to identify 8 trophic guilds and Bayesian phylogenetic modeling to show that trophic guilds can be predicted based on phylogeny and maximum body size. Finally, we use machine learning to test whether pairwise trophic interactions can be predicted with accuracy. Our models achieved a misclassification error of less than 5%, indicating that our approach results in a quantitative and reproducible trophic categorization scheme, as well as high-resolution probabilities of trophic interactions. By applying our framework to the most diverse vertebrate consumer group, we show that it can be applied to other organismal groups to advance reproducibility in trait-based ecology. Our work thus provides a viable approach to account for the complexity of predator–prey interactions in highly diverse ecosystems.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeriano Parravicini ◽  
Jordan M. Casey ◽  
Nina M. D. Schiettekatte ◽  
Simon J. Brandl ◽  
Chloé Pozas-Schacre ◽  
...  

AbstractThe diversity of life on our planet has produced a remarkable variety of biological traits that characterize different species. Such traits are widely employed instead of taxonomy to increase our understanding of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. However, for species’ trophic niches, one of the most critical aspects of organismal ecology, a paucity of empirical information has led to inconsistent definitions of trophic guilds based on expert opinion. Using coral reef fishes as a model, we show that experts often disagree on the assignment of trophic guilds for the same species. Even when broad categories are assigned, 60% of the evaluated trait schemes disagree on the attribution of trophic categories for at least 20% of the species. This disagreement greatly hampers comparability across studies. Here, we introduce a quantitative, unbiased, and fully reproducible framework to define species’ trophic guilds based on empirical data. First, we synthesize data from community-wide visual gut content analysis of tropical coral reef fishes, resulting in trophic information from 13,961 individuals belonging to 615 reef fish species across all ocean basins. We then use network analysis to cluster the resulting global bipartite food web into distinct trophic guilds, resulting in eight trophic guilds, and employ a Bayesian phylogenetic model to predict trophic guilds based on phylogeny and maximum body size. Our model achieved a misclassification error of 5%, indicating that our approach results in a quantitative and reproducible trophic categorization scheme, which can be updated as new information becomes available. Although our case study is for reef fishes, the most diverse vertebrate consumer group, our approach can be applied to other organismal groups to advance reproducibility in trait-based ecology. As such, our work provides an empirical and conceptual advancement for trait-based ecology and a viable approach to monitor ecosystem functioning in our changing world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 721-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelsey M. Kingsbury ◽  
Bronwyn M. Gillanders ◽  
David J. Booth ◽  
Ivan Nagelkerken

Copeia ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 2003 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. J. Marshall ◽  
K. Jennings ◽  
W. N. McFarland ◽  
E. R. Loew ◽  
G. S. Losey

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 723-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erwan Delrieu‐Trottin ◽  
Laura Brosseau‐Acquaviva ◽  
Stefano Mona ◽  
Valentina Neglia ◽  
Emily C. Giles ◽  
...  

AQUASAINS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 887
Author(s):  
Darma Yuliana ◽  
Ayu Rahmasari ◽  
Herman Yulianto ◽  
Abdullah Aman Damai

The components of coral reef ecosystem can be described by the unique regulation in community level. Coral reef fishes use coral reef as their habitat and they highly depend on coral reef health. Otherwise, the condition of coral reef health can be predicted by the biodiversity of coral reef fishes. The research aim was describe communities differences between two explored area in marine tourism spots in Pahawang Island. This research was conducted on November 2019 at two stations on the coral reefs ecosystem of Pahawang Island represented the two quitely different area, the marine tourism and the visitor areas.  The coral reef fishes were observed by using visual census method with a Line Transect length of 30 meters and a visibility of 2.5 meters left and right of the transect.  Coral reef fish community structure was measured by diversity, similarity, and dominancy indexes. A total of 1.940 coral reef fish species from 13 families were recorded. Pomacentridae is the most speciose family (1.091 species), followed by Siganidae (308 species) and Labridae (166 species). Biodiversity of coral reef fishes at Pahawang Island showed results diversity index (H') in both observation stations classified as medium with a low dominance index value (C) and similarity index (E)  at both stations classified as high, presumably as a result of tourism activities. The diversity index at station 2 has a greater value than station 1 as a tourist area with diving and snorkeling tourism activities, at station 2 there are more types or genus of reef fish, compared to station 1.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4A) ◽  
pp. 259-271
Author(s):  
Mai Xuan Dat

Binh Thuan province is located in the South Central Coast of Vietnam with favorable conditions for living coral reefs. The coral reefs were mainly investigated in coastal water areas and Phu Quy island, meanwhile other areas such as the banks and rocky islands seem to lack information. This study was conducted to evaluate the species composition and distribution of coral reef fish communities in the Royal Bishop banks and around rocky islands in Julia shoal in the offshore waters of Binh Thuan province in April 2019. A total of 151 species belonging to 86 genera and 33 families of coral reef fishes were recorded. Among them, 4 species for the first time recorded in Vietnam are Helcogramma striata (Hansen, 1986) (Tripterygiidae), Pseudanthias squamipinnis (Peters, 1855) (Serranidae), Bodianus bilunulatus (Lacepède, 1801) and Coris aygula (Lacepède, 1801) (Labridae). The total average density of coral reef fish in the offshore waters of Binh Thuan is quite high at 1,104.9 ± 617 individuals/250 m2, most of them are small sized fish and ornamental fish group, the large sized fish and target fish group accounts for a relatively low rate, but their density here is much higher compared to that in the coastal waters of Binh Thuan province. The comparative analysis also shows that sites in coral reef around rocky islands have species richness and density of coral reef fish higher than the bank area.


2003 ◽  
Vol 246 ◽  
pp. 279-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
E Cocheret de la Morinière ◽  
BJA Pollux ◽  
I Nagelkerken ◽  
MA Hemminga ◽  
AHL Huiskes ◽  
...  

Copeia ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 2003 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. J. Marshall ◽  
K. Jennings ◽  
W. N. McFarland ◽  
E. R. Loew ◽  
G. S. Losey

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (4A) ◽  
pp. 125-139
Author(s):  
Mai Xuan Dat ◽  
Nguyen Van Long ◽  
Phan Thi Kim Hong

This study was conducted to evaluate the species composition and distribution of coral reef fish communities at 24 sites in three areas Ninh Hai, Phuoc Dinh, and Ca Na in Ninh Thuan province from 2018 to 2019. A total of 301 species belonging to 131 genera and 49 families of coral reef fishes were recorded. Among them, the wrasse (Labridae: 55 species), the damselfish (Pomacentridae: 46 species) and the butterflyfish (Chaetodontidae: 26 species) occupy the three highest proportion. The average density of coral reef fish in coastal waters of Ninh Thuan province is 106.8 ± 23.4 individuals/100 m2, most of them are small sized fish and ornamental fish groups. Ninh Hai has a higher species richness and density than other areas. Meanwhile, Ca Na and Phuoc Dinh have the two highest densities of the large sized fish and food target fish groups. This research also points out the impact of monsoon on the density and distribution of coral reef fish, in which Ninh Hai is most affected.


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