What is it about?
Our underwater surveys found that the quality of soft canopy within sponge, kelp and soft coral patch habitats was a key predictor for the amount of fish we found in an area. In particular, areas with taller canopies had more fish.
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Why is it important?
Understanding what makes for a good quality fish habitat can be difficult, especially when you have many types of habitat within your locality. Our study showed that two simple measures - canopy height and percent cover - were very good predictors for the number and diversity of fishes found in habitat types that are commonly found on coastlines around the world.
Perspectives
Although there has been plenty of work establishing that hard complexity (e.g. height and diversity in different types of coral) is an important measure of fish habitat, our work is showing that soft habitat complexity is equally important for maintaining diverse and abundant fish faunas along our coastlines.
Dr Christopher J Fulton
Australian National University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Importance of soft canopy structure for labrid fish communities in estuarine mesohabitats, Marine Biology, February 2017, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s00227-017-3068-2.
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