Biodiversity patterns of the coral reef cryptobiota around the Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula accounts for approximately 6% of the world's coral reefs. Some thrive in extreme environments of temperature and salinity. Using 51 Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structure (ARMS), a standardized non-destructive monitoring device, we investigated the spatial patterns of coral...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2024-04, Vol.14 (1), p.9532-9532, Article 9532
Main Authors: Villalobos, Rodrigo, Aylagas, Eva, Pearman, John K, Curdia, Joao, Coker, Darren, Bell, Alyssa Clothilde, Brown, Shannon D, Rowe, Katherine, Lozano-Cortés, Diego, Rabaoui, Lotfi J, Marshell, Alyssa, Qurban, Mohammad, Jones, Burton, Berumen, Michael Lee, Carvalho, Susana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Anthozoa - classification
Anthozoa - genetics
Arabian (Persian) Gulf
ARMS
Biodiversity
Biogeography
Coastal development
Coelobites
Coral Reefs
Cytochrome-c oxidase
Cytochromes
Dispersal
Distance
Distribution patterns
Ecosystem management
Electron Transport Complex IV - genetics
Geography
Gulf of Oman
Indian Ocean
Red Sea
Salinity
Taxonomy
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Summary:The Arabian Peninsula accounts for approximately 6% of the world's coral reefs. Some thrive in extreme environments of temperature and salinity. Using 51 Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structure (ARMS), a standardized non-destructive monitoring device, we investigated the spatial patterns of coral reef cryptobenthic diversity in four ecoregions around the Arabian Peninsula and analyzed how geographical and/or environmental drivers shape those patterns. The mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene was used to identify Amplicon Sequence Variants and assign taxonomy of the cryptobenthic organisms collected from the sessile and mobile fractions of each ARMS. Cryptobenthic communities sampled from the two ecoregions in the Red Sea showed to be more diverse than those inhabiting the Arabian (Persian) Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Geographic distance revealed a stronger relationship with beta diversity in the Mantel partial correlation than environmental distance. However, the two mobile fractions (106-500 µm and 500-2000 µm) also had a significant correlation between environmental distance and beta diversity. In our study, dispersal limitations explained the beta diversity patterns in the selected reefs, supporting the neutral theory of ecology. Still, increasing differences in environmental variables (environmental filtering) also had an effect on the distribution patterns of assemblages inhabiting reefs within short geographic distances. The influence of geographical distance in the cryptofauna assemblages makes these relevant, yet usually ignored, communities in reef functioning vulnerable to large scale coastal development and should be considered in ecosystem management of such projects.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-024-60336-8