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Turbinaria ornata as an herbivory refuge for associate algae

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Abstract

Habitat associations are an integral part of coral reef community structure. Commonly, one organism lives in such close association within or near another that a spatial refuge occurs, whereby one of the organisms provides protection to the other. This is often the result of defenses of the host deterring an associate organism’s consumers. In Moorea, French Polynesia, the range and abundance of the brown macroalga, Turbinaria ornata, have increased drastically since 1980 such that dense aggregations of this macroalga are a dominant component of the backreef habitat. Turbinaria ornata is both mechanically and chemically defended from herbivores. Other species of macroalgae grow within aggregations of Turbinaria and may benefit from these defenses. This study investigates whether aggregations of Turbinaria create a refuge from herbivory for associate macroalgae. When Turbinaria aggregations were removed experimentally, there was a significant increase in the number of associate algal species. Moreover, an herbivory assay using the palatable local alga Acanthophora spicifera identified herbivory as the mechanism for lower diversity on bommies lacking Turbinaria aggregations. The local increase in algal richness due to the refuge from herbivory afforded by Turbinaria may be an important contribution to macroalgal and community dynamics on reefs in Moorea, French Polynesia.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the University of California, Los Angeles Marine Biology Quarter 2008 teaching staff for their support throughout the project. Thanks to Peggy Fong for her inspiration and sharing her knowledge of macroalgae and David Jacobs for the encouragement to explore Moorea as this gave us many ideas. Many thanks to Ryan Ellingson, Ranjan Muthukrishnan, Sandy Trautwein and Rachel Clausing for helping us fine tune our methodology, and Briana Fodor, Jessica Pringle and Miles Hogan for help in the field and the rest of our fellow UCLA MBQ 2008 students. We would especially like to thank the University of California’s Gump Research Station staff and researchers for their hospitality and scientific support. Finally, we would like to thank the UCLA Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department for giving us the opportunity to study in Moorea, French Polynesia. This is contribution #180 of the University of California Berkeley’s Gump South Pacific Research Station. All experiments were conducted in accordance with the laws of the United States of America and French Polynesia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Sarah Joy Bittick, Nicholas D. Bilotti, Heather A. Peterson & Hannah L. Stewart

  2. UMS 2978 EPHE-CNRS, Centre de Recherche Insulaire et Observatoire de l’Environnement (CRIOBE), BP 1013, Papetoai, 98729, Moorea, French Polynesia

    Hannah L. Stewart

Authors
  1. Sarah Joy Bittick
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  2. Nicholas D. Bilotti
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  3. Heather A. Peterson
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  4. Hannah L. Stewart
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Correspondence to Hannah L. Stewart.

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Communicated by S. D. Connell.

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Bittick, S.J., Bilotti, N.D., Peterson, H.A. et al. Turbinaria ornata as an herbivory refuge for associate algae. Mar Biol 157, 317–323 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-009-1319-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-009-1319-6

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