Comment on “Chemically mediated behavior of recruiting corals and fishes: A tipping point that may limit reef recovery”

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1 ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia
2 ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, Australia
3 Oceanographic Center, Nova Southeastern University, Dania Beach, Florida, USA
4 Sesoko Station, Tropical Biosphere Reserach Center, University of the Ryukyus, Motobu, Okinawa, Japan
5 Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, California, USA
6 Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.628v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Ecology
Keywords
coral reefs, larval ecology, larval behavior
Copyright
© 2014 Baird et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Baird AH, Cumbo VR, Figueiredo J, Harii S, Hata T, Madin JS. 2014. Comment on “Chemically mediated behavior of recruiting corals and fishes: A tipping point that may limit reef recovery”. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e628v1

Abstract

Dixson et al. (2014) report that coral larvae navigate towards chemical cues associated with healthy reefs and avoid cues from degraded reefs. However, the swimming capabilities of coral larvae and well-established patterns of recruitment and reef hydrodynamics indicate that coral larvae will not be able to use these cues to recruit to healthy reefs. Perfuming degraded reefs, as suggested by Dixson et al (2014), will not enhance recovery rather it will distract from the difficult task of reducing fishing effort and improving water quality.

Author Comment

This comment will be developed into a mini review on coral larval swimming speeds and the sensory abilities and the implications for reef management to be submitted to a journal such as Coral Reefs or PeerJ for review.