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Lookup NU author(s): Christina Skinner, Dr Steven Newman, Professor Aileen MillORCiD, Professor Nick Polunin
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2019 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society. Coral reef food webs are complex, vary spatially and remain poorly understood. Certain large predators, notably sharks, are subsidized by pelagic production on outer reef slopes, but how widespread this dependence is across all teleost fishery target species and within atolls is unclear. North Malé Atoll (Maldives) includes oceanic barrier as well as lagoonal reefs. Nine fishery target predators constituting ca. 55% of the local fishery target species biomass at assumed trophic levels 3-5 were selected for analysis. Data were derived from carbon (δ13 C), nitrogen (δ15 N) and sulphur (δ34 S) stable isotopes from predator white dorsal muscle samples, and primary consumer species representing production source end-members. Three-source Bayesian stable isotope mixing models showed that uptake of pelagic production extends throughout the atoll, with predatory fishes showing equal planktonic reliance between inner and outer edge reefs. Median plankton contribution was 65%-80% for all groupers and 68%-88% for an emperor, a jack and snappers. Lagoonal and atoll edge predators are equally at risk from anthropogenic and climate-induced changes, which may impact the linkages they construct, highlighting the need for management plans that transcend the boundaries of this threatened ecosystem.
Author(s): Skinner C, Newman SP, Mill AC, Newton J, Polunin NVC
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Animal Ecology
Year: 2019
Volume: 88
Issue: 10
Pages: 1564-1574
Print publication date: 01/10/2019
Online publication date: 02/07/2019
Acceptance date: 06/06/2019
Date deposited: 03/07/2019
ISSN (print): 0021-8790
ISSN (electronic): 1365-2656
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13056
DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.13056
PubMed id: 31264204
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