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Freshwater fishes are widely stocked to enhance existing stocks and create new fishery opportunities, but quantification of ecological effects of stocking on recipient communities is still limited. Here, we quantified recent stocking practices in geographically close gravel pit lakes with contrasting history and management, and measured effects of stocking on fish community structure (taxonomic and functional diversity and body-size structure). Between 2011 and 2017, 50% of managers stocked fish into gravel pit lakes at least once. However, stocking density (1.6 kg.year−1.ha−1 to 907 kg.year−1.ha−1), stocking diversity, and species stocked (from rainbow trout-dominated to cyprinid-dominated) were highly variable. Stocking intensity and choice of stocked species were primarily driven by management objectives and lake size. Stocking intensity was associated with changes in the recipient fish community, with an increase in taxonomic and functional richness and nonlinear changes in community size spectrum. Our findings demonstrate that recent stocking practices can modulate ecological dynamics of fish communities in gravel pit lakes with important consequences on functional characteristics that should be incorporated into management practices.

Assessing the impact of global changes and protection effectiveness is a key step in monitoring marine fishes. Most traditional census methods are demanding or destructive. Nondisturbing and nonlethal approaches based on video and environmental DNA are alternatives to underwater visual census or fishing. However, their ability to detect multiple biodiversity factors beyond traditional taxonomic diversity is still unknown. For bony fishes and elasmobranchs, we compared the performance of eDNA metabarcoding and long-term remote video to assess species' phylogenetic and functional diversity. We used 10 eDNA samples from 30 L of water each and 25 hr of underwater videos over 4 days on Malpelo Island (pacific coast of Colombia), a remote marine protected area. Metabarcoding of eDNA detected 66% more molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTUs) than species on video. We found 66 and 43 functional entities with a single eDNA marker and videos, respectively, and higher functional richness for eDNA than videos. Despite gaps in genetic reference databases, eDNA also detected a higher fish phylogenetic diversity than videos; accumulation curves showed how 1 eDNA transect detected as much phylogenetic diversity as 25 hr of video. Environmental DNA metabarcoding can be used to affordably, efficiently, and accurately census biodiversity factors in marine systems. Although taxonomic assignments are still limited by species coverage in genetic reference databases, use of MOTUs highlights the potential of eDNA metabarcoding once reference databases have expanded.Uso de ADN Ambiental en la Evaluación de la Diversidad Funcional y Filogenética de los Peces Resumen La evaluación del impacto de los cambios globales y la efectividad de la protección es un paso fundamental para el monitoreo de peces marinos. La mayoría de los métodos tradicionales de censos son demandantes o destructivos, por lo que las estrategias no letales y no intrusivas basadas en videograbaciones y en el ADN ambiental (ADNa) son alternativas a los censos visuales submarinos y a la pesca. Sin embargo, todavía no se conoce la habilidad que tienen estos métodos para detectar diferentes factores de la biodiversidad más allá de la diversidad taxonómica. Para los peces óseos y los elasmobranquios, comparamos el desempeño de la caracterización genética con ADNa y del video remoto de larga duración para evaluar la diversidad funcional y filogenética de las especies. Usamos diez muestras de ADNa tomadas de 30 litros de agua cada una y 25 horas de vídeos submarinos grabados durante cuatro días en la Isla Malpelo (costa del Pacífico de Colombia), un área marina protegida remota. La caracterización genética con el ADNa detectó 66% más unidades taxonómicas moleculares operacionales (UTMOs) que el video. Encontramos 66 y 43 entidades funcionales con un solo marcador de ADNa y con el video, respectivamente, y una riqueza funcional más alta para el ADNa que el video. A pesar de los vacíos en las bases de datos genéticos usadas como referencia, el ADNa también detectó una diversidad filogenética más alta que aquella en los videos; las curvas de acumulación mostraron cómo un solo transecto de ADNa detectó tanta diversidad filogenética como 25 horas de video. La caracterización genética con ADN ambiental puede usarse para censar los factores de biodiversidad de manera asequible, eficiente y certera en los sistemas marinos. Aunque las atribuciones taxonómicas todavía están limitadas por la cobertura de especies en las bases de datos genéticos de referencia, el uso de los UTMOs resalta el potencial que tiene la caracterización genética con ADNa una vez que las bases de datos de referencia sean expandidas.评估全球变化影响及保护有效性是海洋鱼类监测的关键步骤。然而, 大多数传统种群调查方法都有较高的要求或具有破坏性。基于视频和环境 DNA 的非干扰性、非致死性方法则是水下视觉调查或鱼类捕捞的替代方法。然而, 这些方法检测传统分类学多样性之外其它生物多样性因子的能力尚不清楚。本研究关注硬骨鱼类和软骨鱼类, 比较了环境 DNA宏条形码和长期远程视频监测在评估物种的系统发育多样性和功能多样性中的表现情况。我们在一个偏远的海洋保护区--马尔佩洛岛 (哥伦比亚太平洋海岸) , 收集了10个分别取自 30 升水体的环境 DNA 样品, 以及4天共25小时的水下视频。结果发现, 环境 DNA 宏条形码比水下视频多检测出66%的分子操作分类单元 (MOTUs) 。我们利用单一环境DNA标记或视频分别发现了66个和 43 个功能实体, 利用环境 DNA 检测出的功能丰富度高于水下视频。尽管遗传参考数据库仍存在一些空缺, 但环境DNA 还是比视频检测出更高的鱼类系统发育多样性;累积曲线展示了1个环境 DNA 样带检测到的系统发育多样性相当于25小时的水下视频。环境 DNA 宏条形码可以经济、有效且准确地用于调查海洋系统中的生物多样性因子。尽管分类学鉴定仍受到遗传参考数据库中物种覆盖范围的限制, 但 MOTUs 的使用显现了在参考数据库得到扩充后环境 DNA 宏条形码所具备的潜力。【翻译:胡怡思;审校:聂永刚】.

In the marine environment, fish contribute to key ecological processes such as controlling food-webs through top-down impacts, especially on algae. To date, the assessment of fish grazing activity has mostly been performed using short-term (

Effective solutions to the ongoing “coral reef crisis” will remain limited until the underlying drivers of coral reef degradation are better understood. Here, we conduct a global-scale study of how four key metrics of ecosystem states and processes on coral reefs (top predator presence, reef fish biomass, trait diversity, and parrotfish scraping potential) are explained by 11 indicators based on key human-environment theories from the social sciences. Our global analysis of >1,500 reefs reveals three key findings. First, the proximity of the nearest market has the strongest and most consistent relationships with these ecosystem metrics. This finding is in keeping with a body of terrestrial research on how market accessibility shapes agricultural practices, but the integration of these concepts in marine systems is nascent. Second, our global study shows that resource conditions tend to display a n-shaped relationship with socioeconomic development. Specifically, the probabilities of encountering a top predator, fish biomass, and fish trait diversity were highest where human development was moderate but lower where development was either high or low. This finding contrasts with previous regional-scale research demonstrating an environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis (which predicts a U-shaped relationship between socioeconomic development and resource conditions). Third, together, our ecosystem metrics are best explained by the integration of different human-environment theories. Our best model includes the interactions between indicators from different theoretical perspectives, revealing how marine reserves can have different outcomes depending on how far they are from markets and human settlements, as well as the size of the surrounding human population.

International audience; Human impact increasingly alters global ecosystems, often reducing biodiversity and disrupting the provision of essential ecosystem services to humanity. Therefore, preserving ecosystem functioning is a critical challenge of the twenty-first century. Coral reefs are declining worldwide due to the pervasive effects of climate change and intensive fishing, and although research on coral reef ecosystem functioning has gained momentum, most studies rely on simplified proxies, such as fish biomass. This lack of quantitative assessments of multiple process-based ecosystem functions hinders local and regional conservation efforts. Here we combine global coral reef fish community surveys and bioenergetic models to quantify five key ecosystem functions mediated by coral reef fishes. We show that functions exhibit critical trade-offs driven by varying community structures, such that no community can maximize all functions. Furthermore, functions are locally dominated by few species, but the identity of dominant species substantially varies at the global scale. In fact, half of the 1,110 species in our dataset are functionally dominant in at least one location. Our results reinforce the need for a nuanced, locally tailored approach to coral reef conservation that considers multiple ecological functions beyond the effect of standing stock biomass.

A predictive understanding of ecological processes requires identifying the factors that explain variation in the organismal traits that drive these processes. Integrating evolutionary history and ecology has been shown to be essential to understand variation in traits that determine species interactions in community ecology. However, the extent to which these factors determine traits relevant for ecosystem dynamics (and thus ecosystem ecology) is poorly understood. Nutrient cycling is essential for reef ecosystem dynamics, and consumers are critical drivers of this process. We use a dataset of nine consumer “chemical traits” (e.g., body nutrient content and nutrient excretion rates) associated with nutrient cycling, collected from 1,572 individual coral reef fish (178 species spanning 41 families) in two biogeographic regions, the Caribbean and Polynesia, to quantify the relative importance of phylogenetic history and ecological context as a driver of chemical trait variation on coral reefs. We find: (1) phylogenetic history is a better predictor of variation in all chemical traits, overwhelming the influence of ecological factors, (2) phylogenetic conservatism in chemical traits is greater in the Caribbean than Polynesia, where our data suggests that ecological forces may have a greater influence on chemical trait variation, and (3) differences in chemical traits between regions can be explained by differences in nutrient limitation associated with our study locations. Our study provides multiple lines of evidence that phylogenetic conservatism is a critical determinant of contemporary nutrient dynamics on coral reefs. More broadly our findings highlight the utility of evolutionary history to improve prediction in ecosystem ecology.

International audience; 1. Energy flow and nutrient cycling dictate the functional role of organisms in ecosystems. Fishes are key vectors of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in aquatic systems, and the quantification of elemental fluxes is often achieved by coupling bioenergetics and stoichiometry. While nutrient limitation has been accounted for in several stoichiometric models, there is no current implementation that permits its incorporation into a bioenergetics approach to predict ingestion rates. This may lead to biased estimates of elemental fluxes.2. Here, we introduce a theoretical framework that combines stoichiometry and bioenergetics with explicit consideration of elemental limitations. We examine varying elemental limitations across different trophic groups and life stages through a case study of three trophically distinct reef fishes. Further, we empirically validate our model using an independent database of measured excretion rates.3. Our model adequately predicts elemental fluxes in the examined species and reveals species‐ and size‐specific limitations of C, N and P. In line with theoretical predictions, we demonstrate that the herbivore Zebrasoma scopas is limited by N and P, and all three fish species are limited by P in early life stages. Further, we show that failing to account for nutrient limitation can result in a greater than twofold underestimation of ingestion rates, which leads to severely biased excretion rates.4. Our model improved predictions of ingestion, excretion and egestion rates across all life stages, especially for fishes with diets low in N and/or P. Due to its broad applicability, its reliance on many parameters that are well‐defined and widely accessible, and its straightforward implementation via the accompanying r‐package fishflux, our model provides a user‐friendly path towards a better understanding of ecosystem‐wide nutrient cycling in the aquatic biome.

WOS:000731281400001; International audience; The link between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning has been the topic of considerable research, but it remains unclear how biodiversity decline is compromising ecosystem functionality, particularly in the pelagic realm. Here, we explore how pelagic fish species diversity relates to functional diversity by sampling two locations, which, on the basis of biogeography, environmental conditions and human pressures, were expected to host pronounced differences in species composition and abundances and therefore functionality. Strings of five drifting mid-water Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems were used to survey pelagic vertebrate diversity and abundance in two isolated oceanic island systems, the Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary-a large, 25-year-old marine protected area-and an unprotected area in Cape Verde. Functional diversity, which offers insight into a community's resilience against disturbance, was analysed using six key functional traits of marine fishes. Abundance was recorded as MaxN, the maximum number of individuals of a given species in a single frame during the 2-h deployment time. Cape Verde showed high overall abundance (Total MaxN 873) and low biomass (3559 kg), with a predominance of smaller fishes. Malpelo showed high biomass (7839 kg) but lower abundance (Total MaxN 465), with a predominance of large species. Species and functional diversity were marginally different between locations. Multivariate analysis of species relative abundances showed significant divergence between locations, although community functional traits overlapped strongly, suggesting that both communities share a similar structure and vulnerability. The existence of a common functional 'backbone' in diverging species communities across the oceans, under different productivity regimes, and under different protection levels, suggests that although pelagic communities may differ considerably in terms of species composition, this does not translate into a differing functional structure and resilience potential. Whether this vulnerability is a common feature of pelagic communities and how this contrasts with benthic systems warrants further research.

Aim Regional taxonomic diversity (species richness) is strongly influenced by a joint effect of the current processes (habitat and energy availability) and historical legacies (past climate and geography), but it is still unclear how those historical and current environmental drivers have shaped the functional diversity of species assemblages. Major taxa studied Freshwater fish. Location Global. Time period 1960s–2000s. Methods We combined the spatial occurrences over 2,400 river basins world-wide and the functional traits measured on 10,682 freshwater fish species to quantify the relative role of the habitat, climate and historical processes on the current global fish functional diversity. To avoid any correlation between taxonomic diversity and functional diversity, we controlled for differences in the number of species (species richness) between rivers. Functional diversity was considered through three complementary facets: functional richness, functional dispersion and functional identity. Results The habitat-related variables explained most of the gradient in functional richness, verifying the habitat size–diversity hypothesis. In contrast, the historical climate–geography legacies markedly imprinted the functional dispersion and functional identity patterns, leading to a balanced influence of the current and historical processes. Indeed, the distribution of morphological traits related to fish dispersal was explained largely by the glaciation events during the Quaternary, leading to strong latitudinal gradients. Main conclusions This study provides new insights into the role of historical and current environmental determinants on the functional structure of fish assemblages and strengthens the proposal that the independence of facets of functional diversity from the species richness makes them essential biodiversity variables to understand the structure of communities and their responses to global changes.

International audience; Direct and indirect impacts by invasive animals on plants and other animals through predation and competition have been evidenced in many ecosystems. For instance, the rabbitfish Siganus rivulatus, originating from the Red Sea, is now the most abundant species in costal habitats of South-Eastern Mediterranean Sea where it overgrazes algae. However, little is known about its impacts on microbes through release of metabolic wastes and feces. We used a mesocosm experiment to test the effect of S. rivulatus on planktonic and benthic microbial communities. Excretion of dissolved nutrients by fish resulted in higher concentrations of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (NH4, NO2/NO3). This increase in availability of N was associated with higher N content in macroalgae, higher biomass of phytoplankton, higher abundance of bacterioplankton and shift in the structure of planktonic bacterial communities. The feces released mostly under the shelters where the fish rest at night, led to significant increases in diversity of sediment bacterial communities and shifts in their structure. The impact of S. rivulatus on planktonic microbes was related to the indirect bottom-up effect induced by excreted dissolved nutrients while its effect on benthic microbes was due to the direct release of both organic matter and microbes present in feces. Overall, this first evidence of the impacts of invasive species on planktonic and benthic microbes highlights that ongoing changes in fish biodiversity could have ecosystem-wide consequences.

The relative importance of evolutionary history and ecology for traits that drive ecosystem processes is poorly understood. Consumers are essential drivers of nutrient cycling on coral reefs, and thus ecosystem productivity. We use nine consumer “chemical traits” associated with nutrient cycling, collected from 1,572 individual coral reef fishes (178 species spanning 41 families) in two biogeographic regions, the Caribbean and Polynesia, to quantify the relative importance of phylogenetic history and ecological context as drivers of chemical trait variation on coral reefs. We find: (1) phylogenetic relatedness is the best predictor of all chemical traits, substantially outweighing the importance of ecological factors thought to be key drivers of these traits, (2) phylogenetic conservatism in chemical traits is greater in the Caribbean than Polynesia, where our data suggests that ecological forces have a greater influence on chemical trait variation, and (3) differences in chemical traits between regions can be explained by differences in nutrient limitation associated with the geologic context of our study locations. Our study provides multiple lines of evidence that phylogeny is a critical determinant of contemporary nutrient dynamics on coral reefs. More broadly our findings highlight the utility of evolutionary history to improve prediction in ecosystem ecology., The relative importance of evolutionary history and ecology for traits that drive ecosystem processes is poorly understood. Analyzing nine traits associated with fish stoichiometry from 1,572 individuals yields multiple lines of evidence that phylogeny is a critical determinant of nutrient cycling in coral reefs.

Trait- based ecology aims to understand the processes that generate the overarching diversity of organismal traits and their influence on ecosystem functioning. Achieving this goal requires simplifying this complexity in synthetic axes defining a trait space and to cluster species based on their traits while identifying those with unique combinations of traits. However, so far, we know little about the dimensionality, the robustness to trait omission and the structure of these trait spaces. Here, we propose a unified framework and a synthesis across 30 trait datasets representing a broad variety of taxa, ecosystems and spatial scales to show that a common trade- off between trait space quality and operationality appears between three and six dimensions. The robustness to trait omission is generally low but highly variable among datasets. We also highlight invariant scaling relationships, whatever organismal complexity, between the number of clusters, the number of species in the dominant cluster and the number of unique species with total species richness. When species richness increases, the number of unique species saturates, whereas species tend to disproportionately pack in the richest cluster. Based on these results, we propose some rules of thumb to build species trait spaces and estimate subsequent functional diversity indices.

BackgroundAdvances in the analysis of amplicon sequence datasets have introduced a methodological shift in how research teams investigate microbial biodiversity, away from the classification and downstream analyses of traditional operational taxonomic units (OTUs), and towards the usage of amplicon sequence variants (ASVs). While ASVs have several inherent properties that make them desirable compared to OTUs, questions remain as to the influence that these pipelines have on the ecological patterns being assessed, especially when compared to other methodological choices made when processing data (e.g. rarefaction) and computing diversity indices. ResultsWe compared the respective influences of using ASVs vs. OTU-based pipelines, rarefaction of the community table, and OTU similarity threshold (97% vs. 99%) on the ecological signals detected in freshwater invertebrate and environmental (sediment, seston) 16S rRNA data sets, determining the effects on alpha diversity, beta diversity and taxonomic composition. While the choice of OTU vs. ASV pipeline significantly influenced unweighted alpha and beta diversities and changed the ecological signal detected, weighted indices such as the Shannon index, Bray-Curtis dissimilarity, and weighted Unifrac scores were not impacted by the pipeline followed. By comparison, OTU threshold and rarefaction had a minimal impact effect on all measurements, although rarefaction improved overall signals, especially in OTU-based datasets. The identification of major classes and genera identified revealed significant discrepancies across methodologies. ConclusionWe provide a list of recommendations for the analysis of 16S rRNA amplicon data. We notably recommend the use of ASVs when analyzing alpha-diversity patterns, especially in species-rich or environmental samples. Abundance weighted alpha- and beta-diversity indices should also be preferred compared to ones based on the presence-absence of biological units.

Invasive species are one of many anthropogenic challenges to maintaining a healthy marine ecosystem. Two rabbitfish species (Siganus rivulatus and Siganus luridus) are among the more successful migrants from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, where their intense foraging has caused damage to the algae community, thus reducing primary production and habitat complexity, and impacting nurseries for early life stages. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the impact of rabbitfish on algae is lower in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) although rabbitfish densities are similar in protected and fished areas. One explanation could be that fear of predators, more often present inside MPAs and an important component of a healthy marine ecosystem, reduces the ecological impacts of rabbitfish. This research aimed to test if such fear effects do occur in rabbitfish. Using controlled mesocosm experiments, we tested S. rivulatus reactions to two chemical predation cues: chemical alarm cues released from a recently killed conspecific fish, and water-borne cues from a tank with a live grouper predator, Epinephelus marginatus. We found that rabbitfish significantly reduce their overall food consumption as well as their bites per minute when exposed to the alarm cue, but not when exposed to the grouper water cue. These results support the idea that MPAs, which effectively increase the density of large piscivores and hence predation, can mitigate the impact of invasive herbivorous species. If the mesocosm results can scale up to natural systems, predation cues may be artificially introduced to other target areas in order to reduce rabbitfish grazing outside reserves. Thus, this study provides information that can be used to manage the ecological impacts caused by invasive rabbitfish, both inside and outside of marine reserves.

WOS:000659055500002; International audience; Underwater cameras are widely used to monitor marine biodiversity, and the trend is increasing due to the availability of cheap action cameras. The main bottleneck of video methods now resides in the manual processing of images, a time-consuming task requiring trained experts. Recently, several solutions based on Deep Learning (DL) have been proposed to automatically process underwater videos. The main limitation of such algorithms is that they require thousands of annotated images in order to learn to discriminate classes (here species). This limitation implies two issues: 1) the annotation of hundreds of common species requires a lot of efforts 2) many species are too rare to gather enough data to train a classic DL algorithm. Here, we propose to explore how fewshot learning (FSL), an emerging research field, could overcome DL limitations. Few-shot learning is based on the principle of training a Deep Learning algorithm on "how to learn a new classification problem with only few images". In our case-study, we assess the robustness of FSL to discriminate 20 coral reef fish species with a range of training databases from 1 image per class to 30 images per class, and compare FSL to a classic DL approach with thousands of images per class. We found that FSL outperform classic DL approach in situations where annotated images are limited, yet still providing good classification accuracy.

Describing the spatial and temporal dynamics of communities is essential for understanding the impacts of global environmental change on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Trait-based approaches can provide better insight than species-based (i.e., taxonomic) approaches into community assembly and ecosystem functioning, but comparing species and trait dynamics may reveal important patterns for understanding community responses to environmental change. Here, we used a 33-year database of fish monitoring to compare the spatio-temporal dynamics of taxonomic and trait structure in North Sea fish communities. We found that the majority of variation in both taxonomic and trait structure was explained by a pronounced spatial gradient, with distinct communities in the southern and northern North Sea related to depth, sea surface temperature, salinity and bed shear stress. Both taxonomic and trait structure changed significantly over time, however taxonomically, communities in the south and north diverged toward different species, becoming more dissimilar over time, yet they converged toward the same traits regardless of species differences. In particular, communities shifted toward smaller, faster-growing species with higher thermal preferences and pelagic water column position. Although taxonomic structure changed over time, its spatial distribution remained relatively stable, whereas in trait structure the southern zone of the North Sea shifted northward and expanded, leading to homogenization. Our findings suggest that global environmental change, notably climate warming, will lead to convergence toward traits more adapted for novel environments regardless of species composition. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

International audience; The productivity of most marine ecosystems is limited by the availability of dissolved nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). Nutrient recycling is therefore a key process for ecosystem functioning. Fish recycle nutrients through the excretion of ammonia and phosphate and can influence the abundance and community structure of primary producers such as phytoplankton. However, the effect of fish on other plankton compartments, and whether all fish species have similar effects, is largely unknown. We used a tank experiment to test how 2 Mediterranean fish species, gilthead seabream Sparus aurata and golden mullet Chelon auratus, with distinctly different N and P excretion rates, can affect the abundance and community structure of 3 plankton compartments: phytoplankton, bacterioplankton, and microzooplankton. We found that the nutrients released by seabream (whose excreta had an N:P molar ratio greater than the Redfield ratio of 16:1) induced a substantial increase in the abundance of all plankton compartments. In addition, with seabream, the relative abundance of diatoms in the phytoplankton communities increased. However, no significant change was observed with mullet, which had a low excreta N:P molar ratio, suggesting that the growth of microbial plankton was limited by the availability of N. Our results demonstrate that nutrient excretion by fish affects the microbial food web through a species-specific bottom-up effect on the total abundance and community structure of the phytoplankton, bacterioplankton, and microzooplankton communities.

The link between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning has been the topic of considerable research, but it remains unclear how biodiversity decline is compromising ecosystem functionality, particularly in the pelagic realm. Here, we explore how pelagic fish species diversity relates to functional diversity by sampling two locations, which, on the basis of biogeography, environmental conditions, and human pressures, were expected to host pronounced differences in species composition and abundances, and therefore functionality. Strings of five drifting mid-water Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems were used to survey pelagic vertebrate diversity and abundance in two isolated oceanic island systems, the Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary – a large, 25-year-old marine protected area – and an unprotected area in Cape Verde. Functional diversity, which offers insight into a community’s resilience against disturbance, was analysed using six key functional traits of marine fishes. Cape Verde showed high overall abundance (Total MaxN 873) and low biomass (3,559 kg), with a predominance of smaller fishes. Malpelo showed high biomass (7,839 kg) but lower abundance (Total MaxN 465), with a predominance of large species. Species and functional diversity were marginally different between locations. Multivariate analysis of species relative abundances showed significant divergence between locations, although community functional traits overlapped strongly, suggesting that both communities share a similar structure and vulnerability. The existence of a common functional ‘backbone’ in diverging species communities across the oceans, under different productivity regimes, and under different protection levels, suggests that although pelagic communities may differ considerably in terms of species composition, this does not translate into a differing functional structure and resilience potential. Whether this vulnerability is a common feature of pelagic communities and how this contrasts with benthic systems warrants further research.

No waters left untouched We are increasingly aware of human impacts on biodiversity across our planet, especially in terrestrial and marine systems. We know less about fresh waters, including large rivers. Su et al. looked across such systems globally, focusing on several key measures of fish biodiversity. They found that half of all river systems have been heavily affected by human activities, with only very large tropical river basins receiving the lowest levels of change. Fragmentation and non-native species have also led to the homogenization of rivers, with many now containing similar species and fewer specialized lineages. Science , this issue p. 835

WOS:000623214900001; International audience; Animals have been developing key associations with micro-organisms through evolutionary processes and ecological diversification. Hence, in some host clades, phylogenetic distance between hosts is correlated to dissimilarity in microbiomes, a pattern called phylosymbiosis. Teleost fishes, despite being the most diverse and ancient group of vertebrates, have received little attention from the microbiome perspective and our understanding of its determinants is currently limited. In this study, we assessed the gut microbiome of 12 co-occurring species of teleost representing a large breadth of ecological diversity and originating from a single family (i.e., the Sparidae). We tested how host evolutionary history, diet composition and morphological traits are related to fish gut microbiome. Despite fish species having different microbiomes, there is no phylosymbiosis signal in this fish family, but gut length and diet had a strong influence on the microbiome. We revealed that the only species with a specialized herbivorous diet, Sarpa salpa had a 3.3 times longer gut than carnivorous species and such a long gut favor the presence of anaerobic bacteria typical of herbivorous gut microbiomes. Hence, dietary uniqueness is paired with both unique gut anatomy and unique microbiome.

WOS:000708826500003; Coral reefs are experiencing declines due to climate change and local human impacts. While at a local scale these impacts induce biodiversity loss and shifts in community structure, previous biogeographical analyses recorded consistent taxonomic structure of fish communities across global coral reefs. This suggests that regional communities represent a random subset of the global species and traits pool, whatever their species richness. Using distributional data on 3586 fish species and latest advances in species distribution models, we show marked gradients in the prevalence of size classes and diet categories across the biodiversity gradient. This divergence in trait structure is best explained by reef isolation during past unfavourable climatic conditions, with large and piscivore fishes better represented in isolated areas. These results suggest the risk of a global community re-organization if the ongoing climate-induced reef fragmentation is not halted.

Processing data from surveys using photos or videos remains a major bottleneck in ecology. Deep Learning Algorithms (DLAs) have been increasingly used to automatically identify organisms on images. However, despite recent advances, it remains difficult to control the error rate of such methods. Here, we proposed a new framework to control the error rate of DLAs. More precisely, for each species, a confidence threshold was automatically computed using a training dataset independent from the one used to train the DLAs. These species-specific thresholds were then used to post-process the outputs of the DLAs, assigning classification scores to each class for a given image including a new class called “unsure”. We applied this framework to a study case identifying 20 fish species from 13,232 underwater images on coral reefs. The overall rate of species misclassification decreased from 22% with the raw DLAs to 2.98% after post-processing using the thresholds defined to minimize the risk of misclassification. This new framework has the potential to unclog the bottleneck of information extraction from massive digital data while ensuring a high level of accuracy in biodiversity assessment.

WOS:000591648500001; International audience; Aim The aim of this study was test whether maximum body mass and jaw length are reliable predictors of trophic position (TP) in fishes, and to compare linear and nonlinear machine-learning (ML) models incorporating biogeography, habitat and other morphological traits. Location Global. Time period Modern. Major taxa studied Fishes. Methods We compiled a global database of TP (2.0-4.5), maximum body mass, jaw length, order, ecoregion, habitat and other morphological traits of freshwater, estuarine and diadromous fishes (n = 1,991). We used Bayesian linear mixed effects and ML, with r(2) analogues and 10-fold cross-validation, to explain and predict TP. Results Random forest models outperformed Bayesian models in all comparisons. Jaw length was the most influential predictor of TP, but was weakly associated with body mass except in five orders of largely piscivorous fishes. Trophic position did not scale positively with body mass in global ecoregions, riverine fishes, or in 29/30 orders, but scaled positively in lacustrine fishes and Perciformes. Significant negative TP-body mass scaling was observed in Characiformes. Best models explained 55% of the global variation in TP, but over-estimated the position of herbivores-detritivores, and under-estimated the position of top predators. Main conclusions Our study provides support for jaw length as an important mechanism constraining TP in one of the world's largest groups of vertebrates. Jaw length and body mass were weakly correlated, and therefore body size was not a strong predictor of TP. The diversification of large-bodied herbivores-detritivores and omnivores in freshwater ecosystems, coupled with small predators in species-rich orders (e.g., Cypriniformes, Characiformes) in temperate and tropical rivers explains why TP globally shows a weak relationship with body size. Our model validation results underscore the importance of not assuming that explanatory power extends to predictive capacity in macroecology and machine-learning models.

Coral reefs are experiencing declines due to climate change and local human impacts. While at local scale biodiversity loss induces shifts in community structure, previous biogeographical analyses recorded consistent taxonomic structure of fish communities across global coral reefs. This suggest that regional communities represent a random subset of the global species and traits pool, whatever their species richness. Using distributional data on 3,586 fish species and latest advances in species distribution models we show that the global distribution of reef fishes is influenced by two major traits (body size and diet) and produces a strong divergence in the trait structure of assemblages across the biodiversity gradient. This divergence is best explained by the isolation of reefs during past unfavorable climatic conditions and highlights the risk of a global community re-organization if the ongoing climate-induced reef fragmentation is not halted.

International audience; Coral reefs host hundreds of thousands of animal species that are increasingly threatened by anthropogenic disturbances. These animals host microbial communities at their surface, playing crucial roles for their fitness. However, the diversity of such microbiomes is mostly described in a few coral species and still poorly defined in other invertebrates and vertebrates. Given the diversity of animal microbiomes, and the diversity of host species inhabiting coral reefs, the contribution of such microbiomes to the total microbial diversity of coral reefs could be important, yet potentially vulnerable to the loss of animal species. Analysis of the surface microbiome from 74 taxa, including teleost fishes, hard and soft corals, crustaceans, echinoderms, bivalves and sponges, revealed that more than 90% of their prokaryotic phylogenetic richness was specific and not recovered in surrounding plankton. Estimate of the total richness associated with coral reef animal surface microbiomes reached up to 2.5% of current estimates of Earth prokaryotic diversity. Therefore, coral reef animal surfaces should be recognized as a hotspot of marine microbial diversity. Loss of the most vulnerable reef animals expected under present-day scenarios of reef degradation would induce an erosion of 28% of the prokaryotic richness, with unknown consequences on coral reef ecosystem functioning.

AIM: To determine which morphological characteristics make a fish species a good candidate for introduction and establishment, we tested whether (a) introduced species differ in morphology from non‐introduced species (species only existing in native areas and not introduced to new areas) in each donor assemblage (biogeographic realm fauna); (b) within the introduced species, the morphology of established species (self‐sustaining introduced species) differs from that of the non‐established species; (c) within the established species, those exported out of their native realm have more extreme morphological traits than those translocated within their native realm. MAJOR TAXA STUDIED: Freshwater fish. LOCATION: Global. TIME PERIOD: 1960s–2010s. METHODS: We used a global database of freshwater fishes from the six realms. Ten morphological traits were measured on 9,150 species. Principal component analysis was conducted to combine the 10 traits into a multidimensional morphospace. We used permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) and permutational analysis for the multivariate homogeneity of dispersions (PERMDISP2) to compare the distribution of species groups in the morphospace and Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests to compare their distributions on principal component (PC) axes. RESULTS: The morphology of introduced species differed from that of non‐introduced species in all the six biogeographic realms. Among introduced species, established species had more extreme morphological traits than non‐established species in most realms. Among established species, exported species had more extreme morphological traits than translocated species. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: Morphological differences between introduced and non‐introduced species was driven by an anthropogenic trait selection for fisheries and angling, leading to the preference for the introduction of predators with large and laterally compressed bodies. Established species represent a small subset of introduced species morphologies, with established species having more extreme morphological traits than their non‐established counterparts. Established fish have morphologies more adapted to lentic waters, and this trend was more marked for species exported to other realms than for species translocated within their native realm.

A complex landscape for reef management Coral reefs are among the most biodiverse systems in the ocean, and they provide both food and ecological services. They are also highly threatened by climate change and human pressure. Cinner et al. looked at how best to maximize three key components of reef use and health: fish biomass, parrotfish grazing, and fish trait diversity. They found that when human pressure is low, all three traits can be maximized at high conservation levels. However, as human use and pressure increase, it becomes increasingly difficult to promote biodiversity conservation. At some levels of human impact, even the highest amount of protection is not able to maximize biodiversity conservation. Science , this issue p. 307