Overfishing of large and top predatory fishes on Caribbean coral reefs substantially reduces the amount of nutrients stored and recycled within the ecosystem by fishes, new interdisciplinary research published today in Nature Communications concludes.
The study, by scientists at the University of Washington, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Smithsonian Institution and North Carolina State University, suggests that while avoiding local extinction of fish species is a conservation priority, management actions that preserve large fish groups such as sharks, groupers, snappers and jacks are needed to maintain an adequate flow of nutrients within ecosystems.
“We know that overfishing has wiped out most top predatory reef fishes and large fish species across the coral reefs of the Caribbean. But the potential consequences on crucial ecological processes were mostly unknown,” said Dr. Abel Valdivia, a marine ecologist at the Center for Biological Diversity and coauthor of the study. “We found that fishing not only reduces fish abundance and size, but also diminishes the flow of nutrients these fish release into the ecosystem, which is important for healthy reefs.”
Continue reading at Center for Biological Diversity
Image Credits: Abel Valdivia / Center for Biological Diversity
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