Habitat quality effects on the abundance of a coral-dwelling fish across spatial scales

Microhabitat-associated fishes are expected to be negatively affected by coral reef degradation, given that many species are coral dwellers. However, the factors underlying this negative impact and the spatial scale(s) at which it occurs are poorly understood. We explored how habitat quality metrics and host preferences influence fish abundance across multiple spatial scales, using the functionally important cleaner fish Elacatinus evelynae as a study species. We surveyed fish at 10 sites in Curaçao that varied in coral cover and health. At the microhabitat scale, we found that E. evelynae group size increases on large, healthy corals and on some coral host species, namely Montastraea cavernosa. We also found that, although E. evelynae can occupy at least 10 coral host species, it selectively inhabits just three corals: M. cavernosa, Colpophyllia natans, and Diploria labrynthiformis. Scaling up to explore goby abundance along 30-m transects, we did not find a clear relationship between ..., , , # Habitat quality effects on the abundance of a coral-dwelling fish across spatial scales

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z8w9ghxmg](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z8w9ghxmg)

Code and data files are uploaded as an R Project `Analysis.Rproj`. Open the R Markdown file where data can be read in.

## Description of the data and file structure

`data_benthiccover_gobies.csv` - Data on the number of *Elacatinus evelynae* and benthic categories per transect. Columns `transect_ID` to `depth` contain transect information. The column `num_gobies` contains the number of fish observed (aggregated from the observations in `data_evelynae.csv`). Columns `inv` to `coral` contain percent benthic cover by category (sum to 100). Columns `aga` to `strig` contain the percent coral cover by taxa (sum to `coral` column).

| Column | Description ...