Document of bibliographic reference 359335

BibliographicReference record

Type

Bibliographic resource

Type of document

Journal article

BibLvlCode

AS

Title

Persistence of a sessile benthic organism promoted by a morphological strategy combining sheets and trees

Abstract

Sessile organisms exploit a life-history strategy in which adults are immobile and their growth position is determined at settlement. The morphological strategy exploited by these organisms has strong selective value, because it can allow beneficial matching of morphology to environmental and biological conditions. In benthic marine environments, a ‘sheet-tree’ morphology is a classic mechanism exploited by select sessile organisms, and milleporine hydrocorals provide one of the best examples of this strategy. Using 30-year analysis of Millepora sp. on the reefs of St. John, US Virgin Islands, I tested for the benefits of a sheet-tree morphology in mediating the ecological success of an important functional group of benthic space holders. The abundance of Millepora sp. chaotically changed from 1992 to 2021 in concert with hurricanes, bleaching and macroalgal crowding. Millepora sp. responded to these disturbances by exploiting their morphological strategy to increase the use of trees when their sheets were compromised by bleaching and spatial competition with macroalgae, and the use of sheets when their trees were broken by storms. Together, these results reveal the selective value of a plastic sheet-tree morphology, which can be exploited by sessile organisms to respond to decadal-scale variation in environmental conditions.

WebOfScience code

https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:000902113300006

Bibliographic citation

Edmunds, P.J. (2022). Persistence of a sessile benthic organism promoted by a morphological strategy combining sheets and trees. Proc. - Royal Soc., Biol. Sci. 289(1978). https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0952

Topic

Marine

Is peer reviewed

true

Access rights

open access

Is accessible for free

true