Allochthonous resources are less important for faunal communities on highly productive, small tropical islands.

Ecosystems are interconnected by energy fluxes that provide resources for the inhabiting organisms along the transition zone. Especially where in situ resources are scarce, ecosystems can become highly dependent on external resources. The dependency on external input becomes less pronounced in systems with elevated in situ production, where only consumer species close to the site of external input remain subsidized, whereas species distant to the input site rely on the in situ production of the ecosystem. It is largely unclear though if this pattern is consistent over different consumer species and trophic levels in one ecosystem, and whether consumer species that occur both proximate to and at a distance from the input site differ in their dependency on external resource inputs between sites. Using stable isotope analysis, we investigated the dependency on external marine input for common ground-associated consumer taxa on small tropical islands with high in situ production. We show that marine input is only relevant for strict beach-dwelling taxa, while the terrestrial vegetation is the main carbon source for inland-dwelling taxa. Consumer species that occurred both close (beach) and distant (inland) to the site of marine input showed similar proportions of marine input in their diets. This supports earlier findings that the relevance of external resources becomes limited to species close to the input site in systems with sufficient in situ production. However, it also indicates that the relevance of external input is also species-dependent, as consumers occurring close and distant to the input site depended equally strong or weak on marine input.

The role of turbulent hydrodynamics and surface morphology on heat and mass transfer in corals.

Corals require efficient heat and mass transfer with the overlying water column to support key biological processes, such as nutrient uptake and mitigation of thermal stress. Transfer rates are primarily determined by flow conditions, coral morphology and the physics of the resulting fluid-structure interaction, yet the relationship among these parameters is poorly understood especially for wave-dominated coral habitats. To investigate the interactive effects of these factors on fluxes of heat and mass, we measure hydrodynamic characteristics in situ over three distinct surface morphologies of massive stony corals in a Panamanian reef. Additionally, we implement a numerical model of flow and thermal transport for both current and wave conditions past a natural coral surface, as well as past three simplified coral morphologies with varying ratios of surface roughness spacing-to-height. We find oscillatory flow enhances rates of heat and mass transfer by 1.2-2.0× compared with unidirectional flow. Additionally, increases in Reynolds number and in surface roughness ratio produce up to a 3.3× and a 2.0× enhancement, respectively. However, as waves begin to dominate the flow regime relative to unidirectional currents, the underlying physical mechanisms mediating transfer rates shift from predominantly turbulence-driven to greater control by inertial accelerations, resulting in larger heat and mass transfer for small surface roughness ratios. We show that for rough corals in wave-dominated flows, novel trade-off dynamics for heat and mass transfer exist between broadly spaced roughness that enhances turbulence production versus narrowly spaced roughness that produces greater surface area. These findings have important implications for differential survivorship during heat-induced coral bleaching, particularly as thermal stress events become increasingly common with global climate change.

Spatial and temporal variation of macro-, meso- and microplastic abundance on a remote coral island of the Maldives, Indian Ocean.

Plastic debris is ubiquitous in the marine environment and the world's shores represent a major sink. However, knowledge about plastic abundance in remote areas is scarce. Therefore, plastic abundance was investigated on a small island of the Maldives. Plastic debris (>1mm) was sampled once in natural long-term accumulation zones at the north shore and at the high tide drift line of the south shore on seven consecutive days to quantify daily plastic accumulation. Reliable identification of plastic debris was ensured by FTIR spectroscopy. Despite the remoteness of the island a considerable amount of plastic debris was present. At both sites a high variability in plastic abundance on a spatial and temporal scale was observed, which may be best explained by environmental factors. In addition, our results show that snapshot sampling may deliver biased results and indicate that future monitoring programs should consider spatial and temporal variation of plastic deposition.

The role of vision for navigation in the crown-of-thorns seastar, Acanthaster planci.

Coral reefs all over the Indo-Pacific suffer from substantial damage caused by the crown-of-thorns seastar Acanthaster planci, a voracious predator that moves on and between reefs to seek out its coral prey. Chemoreception is thought to guide A. planci. As vision was recently introduced as another sense involved in seastar navigation, we investigated the potential role of vision for navigation in A. planci. We estimated the spatial resolution and visual field of the compound eye using histological sections and morphometric measurements. Field experiments in a semi-controlled environment revealed that vision in A. planci aids in finding reef structures at a distance of at least 5 m, whereas chemoreception seems to be effective only at very short distances. Hence, vision outweighs chemoreception at intermediate distances. A. planci might use vision to navigate between reef structures and to locate coral prey, therefore improving foraging efficiency, especially when multidirectional currents and omnipresent chemical cues on the reef hamper chemoreception.