Coral Reef Biodiversity— Habitat Size Matters
نویسنده
چکیده
The author is with the Marine Biology Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California-San Diego, San Diego, CA 92093-0202, USA and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Republic of Panama. E-m ail: [email protected] Rainforests of the sea. Biodiversity in the Indo-Pacific region was measured by counting the total numbers of species in the 13 most species-rich coral and fish families associated with 113 reef comm unities (data for coral species at 8 reefs are shown). Circle area is proportional to total number of coral species, which ranges from 13 associated with reefs of the Galapagos Islands to 321 associated with the Great Barrier reef. Fish species (not shown) exhibit a similar biodiversity grad ient. Coral reefs are the most diverse of all marine ecosystems (1), with estim ates of reef species ranging from 600,000 to more than 9 million species worldwide (2, 3). This biod iversity is most pronounced in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans (1, 4), but decreases with increasing distance from the Indo-Australian archipelago. For example, reefs in the central Indo-Pacif ic have more than 10 times as many coral and fish species as reefs of the Galapagos Islands in the eastern Pacific (4) (see the figure). This striking gradient of biodiversity deserves an explanation (1, 4, 5). On page 1532 of this issue, Bellwood and Hughes (6) present their attempt to explain this biodiversity gradient by analyzing the numbers of coral and fish species associated with 113 reef communities stretching from the Red Sea to the Gulf of California. They discovered that the area of suitable reef habitat surrounding the study sites was by far the best predictor of biodiversity at these sites.
منابع مشابه
Ecology. Coral reef biodiversity--habitat size matters.
Coral reefs are the most diverse of all marine ecosystems (1), with estimates of reef species ranging from 600,000 to more than 9 million species worldwide (2, 3). This biodiversity is most pronounced in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans (1, 4), but decreases with increasing distance from the Indo-Australian archipelago. For example, reefs in the central Indo-Pacific have more than 10 times...
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