PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 69: Marine Ecology: Habitat; Communities
Tuesday, August 9, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 522 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Spatial scaling of diversity and rarity in coral and fish communities.

Kappel, Carrie^*,1, Micheli, Fiorenza¹, Brumbaugh, Daniel², Dahlgren, Craig³, Harborne, Alastair⁴, Holmes, Katherine², ¹ Hopkins Marine Station, Pacific Grove, CA, United States² American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, United States³ Caribbean Marine Research Center, Lee Stocking Island, The Bahamas⁴ University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT- Networks of marine reserves, encompassing seascape scale patterns of diversity and connectivity, have been proposed as a tool for conservation of coral reef communities. Biodiversity conservation, including preservation of rare species, is often a stated goal in design of such networks. When data on the distribution and population status of species within potential conservation areas are scarce, and funds are limited for gathering additional data, habitats may be used as a proxy for underlying biodiversity and the presence of particular communities or species. The degree to which the distribution of habitats can be used to predict the distribution of species and of species diversity across a seascape is unknown and depends fundamentally on the relationship between diversity and spatial scale. Even less certain is whether the distribution of rare species, which may be of particular conservation concern, can be predicted by the distribution of habitats or other proxies. We surveyed coral and fish communities in 19 shallow (0 to 15 m), coastal habitats at nested spatial scales, from local (10s to 100s m) to seascape (100s km), across the Bahamas. We describe spatial scaling patterns of fish and coral species diversity and community structure. In addition, we assess the accuracy of habitat as a proxy for both abundant and rare components of fish and coral communities across different spatial scales and its usefulness in the design of reserve networks. Results indicate that community composition within a habitat type is similar at the local scale of individual islands (10s km). At the regional scale (100s km), there are significant differences between sites within a habitat type, but these are still smaller than differences among habitats within a single island. Implications for reserve network planning are discussed.

Key words: Spatial scaling, Biodiversity, Coral reefs, Marine reserve