ArticleScience advances2019
Tropical fish diversity enhances coral reef functioning across multiple scales.
Article in Science advances, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Lateral jaw motion in fish expands the functional repertoire of vertebrates and underpins the success of a dominant herbivore lineage.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Shifting reef restoration focus from coral survivorship to biodiversity using Reef Carpets.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Article
- Decadal shifts in traits of reef fish communities in marine reserves.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Biodiversity as insurance: from concept to measurement and application.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2021Review
- Aquatic biodiversity enhances multiple nutritional benefits to humans.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- First insights into the impacts of benthic cyanobacterial mats on fish herbivory functions on a nearshore coral reef.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Rebound in functional distinctiveness following warming and reduced fishing in the North Sea.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Coral cover a stronger driver of reef fish trophic biomass than fishing.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2021Article
- Fast behavioral feedbacks make ecosystems sensitive to pace and not just magnitude of anthropogenic environmental change.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Development of a reef fish biological condition gradient model with quantitative decision rules for the protection and restoration of coral reef ecosystems.Marine pollution bulletin · 2020Article
- Biodiversity increases ecosystem functions despite multiple stressors on coral reefs.Nature ecology & evolution · 2020Article
- Trophic redundancy and predator size class structure drive differences in kelp forest ecosystem dynamics.Ecology · 2020Article
- Intestinal microbes: an axis of functional diversity among large marine consumers.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Scaling-up biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research.Ecology letters · 2020Review
- Contribution of green turtles Chelonia mydas to total herbivore biomass in shallow tropical reefs of oceanic islands.PloS one · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There is now a general consensus that biodiversity positively affects ecosystem functioning. This consensus, however, stems largely from small-scale experiments, raising the question of whether diversity effects operate at multiple spatial scales and flow on to affect ecosystem structure in nature. Here, we quantified rates of fish herbivory on algal turf communities across multiple coral reefs spanning >1000 km of coastline in the Dominican Republic. We show that mass-standardized herbivory rates are best predicted by herbivore biomass and herbivore species richness both within (α-diversity) and across sites in the region (β-diversity). Using species-diversity models, we demonstrate that many common grazer species are necessary to maximize the process of herbivory. Last, we link higher herbivory rates to reduced algal turf height and enhanced juvenile coral recruitment throughout the ecosystem. Our results suggest that, in addition to high herbivore biomass, conserving biodiversity at multiple scales is important for sustaining coral reef function.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.