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Cardoso de Melo, C., Cavalcanti Soares, A. P., Pelage, L., Eduardo Nole, L., Fredou, T., Lira, A. S., et al. (2020). Haemulidae distribution patterns along the Northeastern Brazilian continental shelf and size at first maturity of the most abundant species. Reg. Stud. Mar. Sci., 35, 101226.
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Collet, A., Durand, J. - D., Desmarais, E., Cerqueira, F., Cantinelli, T., Valade, P., et al. (2018). DNA barcoding post-larvae can improve the knowledge about fish biodiversity: an example from La Reunion, SW Indian Ocean. Mitochondrial DNA Part A, 29(6), 905–918.
Résumé: The aim of this study was to demonstrate that fish larvae identified using their COI sequences offer a unique opportunity for improving the knowledge of local fish richness. Fish larvae were sampled at the end of their pelagic phase using light-traps set off the West Coast of La Reunion Island, southwestern Indian Ocean, once per month from October 2014 to March 2015. Among the 5174 larvae caught, 214 morphologically different specimens were selected, 196 successfully barcoded, giving a total of 101 different Barcode Index Numbers (BINs). Among these BINs, 55 had never been recorded in La Reunion exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and 13 were new for the BOLD database. Even if the sampling effort for collecting fish post-larvae during this study was relatively low, it allowed adding at least nine new species to an updated checklist of fishes of La Reunion EEZ.
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Dalleau, M., Kramer-Schadt, S., Gangat, Y., Bourjea, J., Lajoie, G., & Grimm, V. (2019). Modeling the emergence of migratory corridors and foraging hot spots of the green sea turtle. Ecol. Evol., .
Résumé: Environmental factors shape the spatial distribution and dynamics of populations. Understanding how these factors interact with movement behavior is critical for efficient conservation, in particular for migratory species. Adult female green sea turtles, Chelonia mydas, migrate between foraging and nesting sites that are generally separated by thousands of kilometers. As an emblematic endangered species, green turtles have been intensively studied, with a focus on nesting, migration, and foraging. Nevertheless, few attempts integrated these behaviors and their trade-offs by considering the spatial configurations of foraging and nesting grounds as well as environmental heterogeneity like oceanic currents and food distribution. We developed an individual-based model to investigate the impact of local environmental conditions on emerging migratory corridors and reproductive output and to thereby identify conservation priority sites. The model integrates movement, nesting, and foraging behavior. Despite being largely conceptual, the model captured realistic movement patterns which confirm field studies. The spatial distribution of migratory corridors and foraging hot spots was mostly constrained by features of the regional landscape, such as nesting site locations, distribution of feeding patches, and oceanic currents. These constraints also explained the mixing patterns in regional forager communities. By implementing alternative decision strategies of the turtles, we found that foraging site fidelity and nesting investment, two characteristics of green turtles' biology, are favorable strategies under unpredictable environmental conditions affecting their habitats. Based on our results, we propose specific guidelines for the regional conservation of green turtles as well as future research suggestions advancing spatial ecology of sea turtles. Being implemented in an easy to learn open-source software, our model can coevolve with the collection and analysis of new data on energy budget and movement into a generic tool for sea turtle research and conservation. Our modeling approach could also be useful for supporting the conservation of other migratory marine animals.
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Jeliazkov, A., Mijatovic, D., Chantepie, S., Andrew, N., Arlettaz, R., Barbaro, L., et al. (2020). A global database for metacommunity ecology, integrating species, traits, environment and space. Sci. Data, 7(1), 6.
Résumé: The use of functional information in the form of species traits plays an important role in explaining biodiversity patterns and responses to environmental changes. Although relationships between species composition, their traits, and the environment have been extensively studied on a case-by-case basis, results are variable, and it remains unclear how generalizable these relationships are across ecosystems, taxa and spatial scales. To address this gap, we collated 80 datasets from trait-based studies into a global database for metaCommunity Ecology: Species, Traits, Environment and Space; “CESTES”. Each dataset includes four matrices: species community abundances or presences/absences across multiple sites, species trait information, environmental variables and spatial coordinates of the sampling sites. The CESTES database is a live database: it will be maintained and expanded in the future as new datasets become available. By its harmonized structure, and the diversity of ecosystem types, taxonomic groups, and spatial scales it covers, the CESTES database provides an important opportunity for synthetic trait-based research in community ecology.
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Mouillot, D., De Bortoli, J., Leprieur, F., Parravicini, V., Kulbicki, M., & Bellwood, D. R. (2013). The challenge of delineating biogeographical regions: nestedness matters for Indo-Pacific coral reef fishes. Journal of Biogeography, 40(12), 2228–2237.
Résumé: AimThe delineation of regions is a critical procedure in biogeography, but there is still no consensus about the best approach. Traditionally, a compositional dissimilarity index and a clustering algorithm are used to partition locations into regions. However, the choice of index and algorithm may have a profound impact on the final result, particularly when locations display different levels of species richness and when they are nested within each other. Our objective was to estimate the influence of species nestedness among locations on the delineation of biogeographical regions. LocationAs a case study, we used coral reef fishes (families Chaetodontidae, Pomacentridae and Labridae) from the Indo-Pacific, where a large richness gradient extends, often as a series of nested assemblages, from the species-rich Indo-Australian Archipelago (Coral Triangle) to species-poor peripheral locations. MethodsWe used the turnover and nestedness components of the SOrensen and Jaccard dissimilarity indices to estimate the effect of nestedness on the delineation of biogeographical regions. In addition, we compared the results with those obtained using a parsimony analysis of endemicity (PAE). ResultsLow Mantel correlation values revealed that the PAE method assembled locations in a very different way than methods based on dissimilarity indices for Indo-Pacific coral reef fishes. We also found that nestedness mattered when delineating biogeographical units because, for both the SOrensen and the Jaccard indices, reef fish assemblages were grouped differently depending on whether we used the turnover component of each index or the complete index, including the nestedness component. The turnover component ignored variation in species richness attributable to differences in habitat area between locations, and permitted a delineation based solely on species replacement. Main conclusionsWe demonstrate that the choice of the component used to measure dissimilarity between species assemblages is critical, because it may strongly influence regional delineations, at least for Indo-Pacific coral reef fishes. We conclude that the two components of the dissimilarity indices can reveal complementary insights into the role that history may have played in shaping extant patterns of biodiversity.
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