Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of The Royal Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282 (2015): 20151311, doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.1311.
Description:
Determining the conditions under which populations may persist requires accurate estimates of
demographic parameters, including immigration, local reproductive success, and mortality rates. In
marine populations, empirical estimates of these parameters are rare, due at least in part to the
pelagic dispersal stage common to most marine organisms. Here, we evaluate population
persistence and turnover for a population of orange clownfish, Amphiprion percula, at Kimbe Island
in Papua New Guinea. All fish in the population were sampled and genotyped on five occasions at
2-year intervals spanning eight years. The genetic data enabled estimates of reproductive success
retained in the same population (reproductive success to self-recruitment), reproductive success
exported to other subpopulations (reproductive success to local connectivity), and immigration and
mortality rates of sub-adults and adults. Approximately 50% of the recruits were assigned to parents
from the Kimbe Island population and this was stable through the sampling period. Stability in the
proportion of local and immigrant settlers is likely due to: low annual mortality rates and stable egg
production rates, and the short larval stages and sensory capacities of reef fish larvae. Biannual
mortality rates ranged from 0.09 to 0.55 and varied significantly spatially. We used these data to
parameterize a model that estimated the probability of the Kimbe Island population persisting in the
absence of immigration. The Kimbe Island population was found to persist without significant
immigration. Model results suggest the island population persists because the largest of the
subpopulations are maintained due to having low mortality and high self-recruitment rates. Our
results enable managers to appropriately target and scale actions to maximize persistence likelihood
as disturbance frequencies increase.
Description:
This research was supported by LABEX Corail, ERC, CRISP, the GEF CRTR
Connectivity Working Group, NSF, the ARC CoE Coral Reef Studies, TNC, Total Foundation,
JCU, KAUST, and WHOI.
Description:
2016-11-18
Keywords:
Amphiprion percula
;
Long-term monitoring
;
Parentage analysis
;
Self-recruitment
;
Population demography
;
Persistence
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Preprint
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