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- Title
THE IMPACT OF EXPLOITING GRAZERS (SCARIDAE) ON THE DYNAMICS OF CARIBBEAN CORAL REEFS.
- Authors
Mumby, Peter J.
- Abstract
The article discusses the study on the impact of exploiting grazers on the dynamics of coral reefs in the Caribbean Area. The author used a spatially explicit simulation model to examine the ecosystem requirements for grazing which is primarily conducted by parrotfish. The model allows the impact of fishing grazers to be assessed in the wider context of other ecosystem processes including coral-algal competition and mass extinction of the herbivorous urchin Diadema antillarum. Based on the analyses, scarid grazing had the most acute impact on model behavior and depletion led to the emergence of a stable, algal-dominated community state. Depleted grazers caused a population bottleneck in juvenile corals in which algal overgrowth resulted in a bimodal distribution of coral sizes.
- Subjects
CARIBBEAN; HABITAT partitioning (Ecology); COMPETITION (Biology); ECOLOGY; DIADEMA antillarum; CORAL reefs &; islands; ENVIRONMENTAL degradation
- Publication
Ecological Applications, 2006, Vol 16, Issue 2, p747
- ISSN
1051-0761
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1890/1051-0761(2006)016[0747:TIOEGS]2.0.CO;2