Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-2012
Publication Title
Ecological Applications
Keywords
Connectivity, Coral reef seascapes, Dispersal, Landscape ecology, Marine protected areas, Metapopulation, Population openness, Reef fishes
ISSN
1051-0761
Volume
22
Issue/No.
4
First Page
1257
Last Page
1267
Abstract
Which populations are replenished primarily by immigrants (open) and which by local production (closed) remains an important question for management with implications for response to exploitation, protection, and disturbance. However, we lack methods for predicting population openness. Here, we develop a model for openness and show that considering habitat isolation explains the existence of surprisingly closed populations in high-dispersal species, including many marine organisms. Relatively closed populations are expected when patch spacing is more than twice the standard deviation of a species' dispersal kernel. In addition, natural scales of habitat patchiness on coral reefs are sufficient to create both largely open and largely closed populations. Contrary to some previous interpretations, largely closed marine populations do not require mean dispersal distances that are unusually short, even for species with relatively long pelagic larval durations. We predict that habitat patchiness has strong control over population openness for many marine and terrestrial species with a highly dispersive life stage and relatively sedentary adults. This information can be used to make initial predictions about where populations will be more or less resilient to local exploitation and disturbance.
NSUWorks Citation
Malin L. Pinsky, Stephen R. Palumbi, Serge Andrefouet, and Samuel J. Purkis. 2012. Open and Closed Seascapes: Where Does Habitat Patchiness Create Populations with High Fractions of Self-Recruitment? .Ecological Applications , (4) : 1257 -1267. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/254.
ResearcherID
B-8552-2013
DOI
10.1890/11-1240.1
Comments
©2012 by the Ecological Society of America