Consistent abundance distributions of marine fishes in an old,climatically buffered,infertile seascape |
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| Authors: | Timothy J Langlois Ben T Radford Kimberley P Van Niel Jessica J Meeuwig Alan F Pearce Cecile S G Rousseaux Gary A Kendrick Euan S Harvey |
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| Institution: | 1. The UWA Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, WA, Australia;2. School of Plant Biology, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, WA, Australia;3. School of Earth and Environment, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, WA, Australia;4. Australian Institute of Marine Science, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, WA, Australia;5. Centre for Marine Futures and School of Animal Biology, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, WA, Australia;6. Department of Imaging and Applied Physics, Curtin University, Kent Street, Bentley 6102, WA, Australia;7. School of Environmental System Engineering, The University of Western Australia, Crawley 6009, WA, Australia;8. Universities Space Research Association/Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD, USA |
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| Abstract: | Aim Macroecological theory predicts that along direct physiological gradients there will be unimodal abundance distributions of species and consistent rates of assemblage turnover. However, the majority of marine studies that have investigated the realized distribution of species along latitudinal or temperature gradients have generally found unimodal distributions to be rare. We assess fish distributions along a temperature gradient in a stable oligotrophic seascape and suggest that unimodal distributions will be more common. Location Nearshore demersal fish habitat extending 1500 km along the coast of south‐western Australia. Methods The relative abundances of demersal fish species were sampled off the coast of south‐western Australia along a temperature gradient. The confounding influence of other environmental variables was tested, and the assemblage was found to be highly correlated with temperature. For the 20 most abundant species, quantile regression spline models were used to construct a model within which 95% of their abundance was expected to fall. We compared the results from this study with the proportion of unimodal species abundance distributions observed in other studies. Results Of the 20 most abundant species, 19 displayed patterns that indicated temperature was an important factor influencing their range and relative abundance; with 15 species exhibiting unimodal abundance distributions, four having ramped distribution to one end of the sampled range and one showing no consistent pattern. Main conclusions The high diversity and percentage of endemic species in terrestrial and marine habitats of south‐western Australia is likely to be due to the stable geological and oceanographic history of the region. In comparison, studies of abundance distribution in other marine systems have been conducted in relatively heterogeneous and productive environments. The old, climatically buffered, oligotrophic seascape of south‐western Australia has provided a simple system in which the consistent influence of physiological gradients on the abundance distribution of fish species can be observed. |
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| Keywords: | Abundance distribution abundant‐centre Australia demersal fish Indian Ocean latitude ocean solutions species turnover |
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