Theory for the Dynamics of Coral Reef Fishes with Applications to Hypothesis Testing

最近的珊瑚礁鱼类生态合成鼓励人口和社区动态的机制，在幼虫供应和密度依赖的相互作用或定居后的变化，预计都有重要的影响多元化的观点。用于发展的概念的规模过渡和存储效应的理论模型意味着，幼虫供应和密度依赖的变化应该有相互作用的影响，人口和社会动态导致，例如，稳定的人口动态和维护的多样性在大的空间尺度上的方式，将不会被预测从单独的影响，在幼虫供应和密度依赖的变化。这种相互作用也对实验和观测数据的能力产生重要影响，以便（1）检测密度依赖性，（2）确定种群调节的规模和机制，（3）为珊瑚礁系统的高度生物多样性提供有意义的解释，本项目将开发一个珊瑚礁鱼类系统的集合种群模型，其中包括种群率的随机变化，招募的时空变化，当地种群内的阶段结构和多物种密度依赖的相互作用。这个模型将提供一个通用的理论框架，用于发展关于珊瑚礁鱼类系统固有的多个过程和尺度的综合影响的假设。将结合种群密度、种群调节和多样性维持等重要成果来研究这些影响。将制定具体的预测，作为诊断工具，了解如何在珊瑚礁鱼类系统中可观察到的模式与当地和集合种群规模的基本过程。将花费大量的精力制定具体的实验假设，可以在该领域进行测试。

Recent syntheses of coral reef fish ecology encourage a pluralistic view of mechanisms of population and community dynamics where variation in larval supply and density dependent interactions at or after settlement are both expected to have important effects. Theoretical models used to develop the concepts of the scale transition and the storage effect imply that variation in larval supply and density dependence should have interactive effects on population and community dynamics leading, for example, to stabilization of population dynamics and maintenance of diversity on large spatial scales in ways that would not be predicted from the separate effects of variation in larval supply and density dependence. Such interactions also have important consequences for the ability of experimental and observational data to (1) detect density dependence, (2) identify the scales and mechanisms of population regulation, and (3) offer meaningful explanations for the high biological diversity of coral reef systems.This project will development a metapopulation model of reef fish systems that incorporates stochastic variation in demographic rates, spatio-temporal variation in recruitment, stage-structure within local populations, and multispecies density-dependent interactions. This model will provide a general theoretical framework useful for developing hypotheses about the combined effects of the multiple processes and scales inherent to reef-fish systems. These effects will be studied in relation to important outcomes such as population density, population regulation and diversity maintenance. Specific predictions will be developed as diagnostic tools for understanding how observable patterns in reef fish systems are related to the underlying processes on both local and metapopulation scales. Significant effort will be expended on formulating specific experimental hypotheses that can be tested in the field.