Responses of coral reef fishes to past climate changes are related to life-history traits.
Coral reefs and their associated fauna are largely impacted by ongoing climate change. Unravelling species responses to past climatic variations might provide clues on the consequence of ongoing changes. Here, we tested the relationship between changes in sea surface temperature and sea levels during the Quaternary and present-day distributions of coral reef fish species. We investigated whether species-specific responses are associated with life-history traits. We collected a database of coral reef fish distribution together with life-history traits for the Indo-Pacific Ocean. We ran species distribution models (SDMs) on 3,725 tropical reef fish species using contemporary environmental factors together with a variable describing isolation from stable coral reef areas during the Quaternary. We quantified the variance explained independently by isolation from stable areas in the SDMs and related it to a set of species traits including body size and mobility. The variance purely explained by isolation from stable coral reef areas on the distribution of extant coral reef fish species largely varied across species. We observed a triangular relationship between the contribution of isolation from stable areas in the SDMs and body size. Species, whose distribution is more associated with historical changes, occurred predominantly in the Indo-Australian archipelago, where the mean size of fish assemblages is the lowest. Our results suggest that the legacy of habitat changes of the Quaternary is still detectable in the extant distribution of many fish species, especially those with small body size and the most sedentary. Because they were the least able to colonize distant habitats in the past, fish species with smaller body size might have the most pronounced lags in tracking ongoing climate change.
Unit of Ecology & Evolution University of Fribourg Fribourg Switzerland.
Eduardo
E
Ottimofiore
Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL Birmensdorf Switzerland; Landscape Ecology Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems ETH Zürich Zürich Switzerland; IFREMER, unité Ecologie et Modèles pour l'Halieutiquerue de l'Ile d'Yeu, BP21105 44311 Nantes cedex 3 France.
Camille
C
Albouy
UMR MARBEC (CNRS IRD IFREMER UM) Montpellier Cedex 5 France.
Fabien
F
Leprieur
Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL Birmensdorf Switzerland; Landscape Ecology Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems ETH Zürich Zürich Switzerland.
Patrice
P
Descombes
Institut pour la Recherche en Développement UR UMR "Entropie", Labex Corail, Université de Perpignan Perpignan France.
Michel
M
Kulbicki
UMR MARBEC (CNRS IRD IFREMER UM) Montpellier Cedex 5 France.
David
D
Mouillot
CRIOBE, USR 3278 CNRS-EPHE-UPVD, LABEX "CORAIL" University of Perpignan Perpignan France.
Valeriano
V
Parravicini
Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL Birmensdorf Switzerland; Landscape Ecology Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems ETH Zürich Zürich Switzerland.
Loïc
0000-0002-2289-8259
L
Pellissier
Indo‐Pacific Ocean; climate change; dispersal; species distribution models