Predicting coral species richness: the effect of input variables, diversity and scale

Coral reefs are facing a biodiversity crisis due to increasing human impacts, consequently, one third of reef-building corals have an elevated risk of extinction. Logistic challenges prevent broad-scale species-level monitoring of hard corals; hence it has become critical that effective proxy indica...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2014-01, Vol.9 (1), p.e83965-e83965
Main Authors: Richards, Zoe T, Hobbs, Jean-Paul A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Anthozoa - classification
Anthozoa - genetics
Balances (scales)
Biodiversity
Biodiversity conservation
Biological monitoring
Biology
Coral reefs
Corals
Earth Sciences
Ecosystem biology
Ecosystems
Extinction (Biology)
Fishes
Human influences
Indicators
Monitoring
Museums
Phylogeny
Reefs
Species diversity
Species extinction
Species richness
Studies
Taxonomy
Trends
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Summary:Coral reefs are facing a biodiversity crisis due to increasing human impacts, consequently, one third of reef-building corals have an elevated risk of extinction. Logistic challenges prevent broad-scale species-level monitoring of hard corals; hence it has become critical that effective proxy indicators of species richness are established. This study tests how accurately three potential proxy indicators (generic richness on belt transects, generic richness on point-intercept transects and percent live hard coral cover on point-intercept transects) predict coral species richness at three different locations and two analytical scales. Generic richness (measured on a belt transect) was found to be the most effective predictor variable, with significant positive linear relationships across locations and scales. Percent live hard coral cover consistently performed poorly as an indicator of coral species richness. This study advances the practical framework for optimizing coral reef monitoring programs and empirically demonstrates that generic richness offers an effective way to predict coral species richness with a moderate level of precision. While the accuracy of species richness estimates will decrease in communities dominated by species-rich genera (e.g. Acropora), generic richness provides a useful measure of phylogenetic diversity and incorporating this metric into monitoring programs will increase the likelihood that changes in coral species diversity can be detected.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0083965