High connectivity among habitats precludes the relationship between dispersal and range size in tropical reef fishes

By Camilo Mora, Eric A. Treml, J. M. Roberts, K. Crosby, D. Roy, Derek P. Tittensor. 2012

107 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Th e hypothesis that pelagic larval duration (PLD) infl uences range size in marine species with a benthic adult stage and a pelagic larval period is intuitively attractive; yet, studies conducted to date have failed to support it. A possibility for the lack of a relationship between PLD and range size may stem from the failure of past studies to account for the eff ect of species evolutionary ages, which may add to the dispersal capabilities of species. However, if dispersal over ecological (i.e. PLD) and across evolutionary (i.e. species evolutionary age) time scales continues to show no eff ect on range size then an outstanding question is why? Here we collected data on PLD, evolutionary ages and range sizes of seven tropical fi sh families (fi ve families were reef-associated and two have dwell demersal habitats) to explore the independent and interactive eff ects of PLD and evolutionary age on range size. Separate analyses on each family showed that even after controlling for evolutionary age, PLD has an insignifi cant or a very small eff ect on range size. To shed light on why dispersal has such a limited eff ect on range size, we developed a global ocean circulation model to quantify the connectivity among tropical reefs relative to the potential dispersal conferred by PLD. We found that although there are several areas of great isolation in the tropical oceans, most reef habitats are within the reach of most species given their PLDs. Th ese results suggest that the lack of habitat isolation can potentially render the constraining eff ect of dispersal on range size insignifi cant and explain why dispersal does not relate to range size in reef fi shes.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/af7914bcf9d5153b5c3944d989547355cb06b79f

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In Global and Planetary Change

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Citations in the corpus

Linking basin‐scale connectivity, oceanography and population dynamics for the conservation and management of marine ecosystems (2016, background): “…between the complex life history traits of marine246 organisms, their distribution ranges and their realized dispersal [e.g. Riginos et al. 2011; Mora et al. 2012],247 the respective roles of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that determine population connectivities remain unclear248 [Botsford et…”
Marine shelf habitat: biogeography and evolution (2013, background): “…gap greater than 800 km exists between the Society Islands and the Western Pacific Ocean (Schultz et al., 2008), and favourable ocean currents (Mora et al., 2012) result in high genetic connectivity in reef-associated species (Lessios et al., 2003; DiBattista et al., 2011; Eble et al., 2011a).”
The molecular biogeography of the Indo‐Pacific: Testing hypotheses with multispecies genetic patterns (2019, background): “A simple interpretation of this result would be that the Indo‐Pacific is well connected by propagule‐mediated gene flow (Mora et al., 2012).”