This repository holds code, data, and other files related to the following manuscript:
Panzetta, S.W.S., Stuart, C.E., & Green, S.J. (In Revision). Biogeophysical drivers of abundance for habitat-shifting reef fishes on stepping-stone coral patch reefs. Coral Reefs.
In this project, we investigated how 16 variables related to habitat structure, biotic community composition, and environmental conditions present on patch reefs off the Florida Keys, USA, influenced the abundances of two habitat-shifting fish species — gray snapper (Lutjanus griseus) and bluestriped grunt (Haemulon sciurus). We partitioned sub-adult L. griseus and H. sciurus abundance records into calibration and validation subsets. We then fit negative binomial regressions and evaluated predictive accuracy and covariate contributions. When allowing a ±5 variation from observed fish counts, the fitted L. griseus and H. sciurus models achieved predictive accuracies of 81.08% and 69.92%, respectively. The two species showed similar responses to various factors, exhibiting elevated abundances on small, irregularly shaped patch reefs hosting predators and bordered by seagrass. As well, patch reefs experiencing higher salinities and winter temperatures also harboured significantly higher abundances of one or both species. Depth and bathymetric position index had significant, yet species-specific, effects, with deeper patch reefs on local ridges and shallower patch reefs in local valleys supporting higher abundances of L. griseus and H. sciurus, respectively. This research advances our understanding of the biogeophysical attributes of patch reefs that support their function as stepping-stone habitats for sub-adult fishes undertaking ontogenetic migrations in the Florida Keys.
You are welcome to use and borrow from this code base in accordance with the license below. Please contact Sofia Panzetta (@panzetta@ualberta.ca) if you have questions about this work.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
