Dietary resilience of coral reef fishes to habitat degradation
Dietary resilience of coral reef fishes to habitat degradation
ABSTRACT The ability of consumers to adjust their diet in response to resource shifts is a key mechanism allowing the persistence of populations and underlying species’ adaptive capacity. Yet on coral reefs, one of the marine habitats most vulnerable to global change, the extent to which species alter their diet remains poorly understood. Here, we integrated DNA-based gut content analyses (metabarcoding), otolith analysis, body condition, and field surveys to test how diet can mediate effects of habitat degradation on two invertivorous fishes: Chaetodon capistratus, a browser, and Hypoplectrus puella, an active predator. Metabarcoding revealed significant dietary variation in both species across a habitat gradient. However, the response was more pronounced in the browser, whose diet was anthozoan-dominated on healthy reefs, whereas annelid-dominated on degraded reefs. We found reduced growth and body condition on degraded reefs in the browser but not the active predator. Our results reveal that dietary versatility can serve as a mechanism to cope with degraded environments, but that species differ as to whether these changes are sufficient to buffer from changes in habitat. We detected intraspecific dietary variation across sites that suggests food webs and energy flow differ at relatively small scales between healthy and degraded reefs.
Preziosi Richard F.、De Gracia Br¨agida、McMillan W. Owen、Leray Matthieu、O?ˉDea Aaron、Quintero Helio、Altieri Andrew H.、Clever Friederike、Knowlton Nancy、Nguyen Bryan
Department of Natural Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University||School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University of PlymouthSmithsonian Tropical Research InstituteSmithsonian Tropical Research InstituteSmithsonian Tropical Research InstituteSmithsonian Tropical Research Institute||Sistema Nacional de Investigaci¨?nSmithsonian Tropical Research InstituteSmithsonian Tropical Research Institute||Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of FloridaSmithsonian Tropical Research Institute||Department of Natural Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityNational Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian InstitutionCenter for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
环境科学理论环境科学技术现状环境生物学海洋学
dietary metabarcodingCOIChaetodonHypoplectrustrophic interactioncorallivoremesopredatorprey availabilityotolith analysis
Preziosi Richard F.,De Gracia Br¨agida,McMillan W. Owen,Leray Matthieu,O?ˉDea Aaron,Quintero Helio,Altieri Andrew H.,Clever Friederike,Knowlton Nancy,Nguyen Bryan.Dietary resilience of coral reef fishes to habitat degradation[EB/OL].(2025-03-28)[2025-06-29].https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.05.22.595166.点此复制
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