Coral reefs have high biodiversity among the many marine ecosystems. Many hypotheses explain marine biodiversity, e.g., the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis, the Lottery hypothesis and the Resource Allocation Hypothesis, but there is no mention of the possible role of seasonal effects. Here, we propose the Seasonal Recruitment Hypothesis to explain the possible role of seasonal recruitment and succession in a disturbed ecosystem. In this investigation, we tested several prediction of the hypothesis: a. Does recruitment have seasonal variation? b. Does variable recruiting communities diverge in succession? c. Are high biodiversities of coral reefs contributed by different communities originating from patches created in different seasons?
In this study, we used plastic plates as proxy of empty space generated after disturbance to survey the seasonal patterns of settling benthos. Recruitment plates were placed and retrieved at two-month intervals for two consecutive years. Then, the composition and densities of settled taxa were estimated. The PRIMER software was used to compare the community similarities. We looked for possible seasonal patterns in each benthic populations but found few not real examples of such. Although there is difference between communities started in different seasons, no cyclic pattern in similarity was found by MDS plots in two years of recruitment communities. There are variations of recruitment community between different year and month, and the community structures converged after succession. These results do not support the prediction of the Seasoanl Recruitment Hypothesis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0906110-183632 |
| Date | 06 September 2010 |
| Creators | Yang, Shang-lin |
| Contributors | Keryea Soong, Li-Lian Liu, Hsing-Juh Lin |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0906110-183632 |
| Rights | off_campus_withheld, Copyright information available at source archive |
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