Meeting Abstract
Coral reefs provide essential habitat for thousands of species, supporting much of Florida’s economies. Unfortunately, coral reefs are transitioning from structurally-complex, coral-dominated communities to relatively-flat, macroalgae-dominated community, triggering a loss in biodiversity and ecosystem function. Therefore, understanding the relationship between physical structure and biotic composition of coral ecosystems to reef fish diversity and how these communities respond to disturbance events like hurricanes and disease outbreaks is crucial for future reef management strategies. We surveyed reef fish and benthic community structure on reefs in the middle Florida Keys, before and after a major hurricane and coral disease outbreak. Total reef fish abundance and species richness did not change despite significant changes in relative cover of coral, algae, sponge, and soft corals. Herbivores decreased with decreasing algal cover, while omnivores and predators increased with increasing ledges. Neon gobies decreased with decreasing coral cover and shifted to using sponges and sea fans as cleaning stations. This research suggests that reef fish communities are robust to changes in physical structure and substrate cover, but substrate associated species are most sensitive to a rapidly changing reef environment.
