MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Fish Counts versus Coral Diversity for Holbrook, et al. PLoS One 2015

To test the impact of the regional species pool on the coral-fish diversity relationship, the same experiment was conducted in lagoons of Schumann Island in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea (5°31’S, 150°5’E), Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia (14º 41’S, 145º 27’E), and Moorea in French Polynesia (17° 30’S, 149° 50’W). Divers counted individuals of all species observed on or interacting with 45 patch reefs were constructed using six abundant, co-occurring coral species that were major habitat providers for fish. Fish were allowed to naturally colonize over 8-12 months and the patch reefs were surveyed by scuba divers four times during the period. The species of corals used in the experiment were selected to include species that exhibit a broad range of structural morphologies and potential sensitivities to climate change and other environmental stressors. These data support the manuscript: Holbrook, Sally J., Russel J. Schmitt, Vanessa Messmer, Andrew J. Brooks, Maya Srinivasan, Philip L. Munday and Geoffrey P. Jones, Reef Fishes in Biodiversity Hotspots are at Greatest Risk from Loss of Coral Species, accepted 2015, PLoS One.