Portfolio effects and functional redundancy contribute to the maintenance of octocoral forests on Caribbean reefs

Abstract Declines in abundance of scleractinian corals on shallow Caribbean reefs have left many reefs dominated by forests of arborescent octocorals. The ecological mechanisms favoring their persistence require exploration. We quantified octocoral communities from 2014 to 2019 at two sites in St. J...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: P. J. Edmunds, H. R. Lasker
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2022-05-01
Series:Scientific Reports
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10478-4