Priest, Jamie, Ferreira, Camilo M., Munday, Philip L., Roberts, Amelia, Rodolfo-Metalpa, Riccardo, Rummer, Jodie L., Schunter, Celia, Ravasi, Timothy, and Nagelkerken, Ivan (2024) Out of shape: Ocean acidification simplifies coral reef architecture and reshuffles fish assemblages. Journal of Animal Ecology, 93 (8). pp. 1097-1107.

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Abstract

Climate change stressors are progressively simplifying biogenic habitats in the terrestrial and marine realms, and consequently altering the structure of associated species communities. Here, we used a volcanic CO2 seep in Papua New Guinea to test in situ if altered reef architecture due to ocean acidification reshuffles associated fish assemblages. We observed replacement of branching corals by massive corals at the seep, with simplified coral architectural complexity driving abundance declines between 60% and 86% for an assemblage of damselfishes associated with branching corals. An experimental test of habitat preference for a focal species indicated that acidification does not directly affect habitat selection behaviour, with changes in habitat structural complexity consequently appearing to be the stronger driver of assemblage reshuffling. Habitat health affected anti-predator behaviour, with P. moluccensis becoming less bold on dead branching corals relative to live branching corals, irrespective of ocean acidification. We conclude that coral reef fish assemblages are likely to be more sensitive to changes in habitat structure induced by increasing pCO2 than any direct effects on behaviour, indicating that changes in coral architecture and live cover may act as important mediators of reef fish community structures in a future ocean.

Item ID:	84823
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1365-2656
Keywords:	coral reef fishes, coral structural complexity, habitat association, habitat simplification, indirect effects, ocean acidification
Related URLs:	https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri...
Copyright Information:	his is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.
Funders:	Australian Research Council (ARC)
Projects and Grants:	ARC FT120100183
Date Deposited:	06 Mar 2025 00:33
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