Farming damselfishes are well known for shaping benthic communities on reefs, in terms of both cultivating algae and increasing productivity. However, their capacity to shape relationships between algal turfs, detritus and sediments remains largely unknown, despite the importance of such relationships on reefs. We therefore examined the relationships between sediment loads and both algal turf length and detritus levels, inside and outside farming damselfish territories, at two reefs on the Great Barrier Reef. We found that, while sediment loads are tightly coupled with algal turfs outside territories, the nature of this coupling was fundamentally different inside damselfish territories, with significantly longer algal turfs and higher detritus levels prevailing, irrespective of sediment loads. These modified algal turf-sediment relationships may be a key factor in explaining, a) the significantly higher productivity levels reported from within farming damselfish territories and b) the ability of farming damselfishes to persist in high-sediment locations.

在养殖藻类和提高生产力方面，养殖雀鲷以在礁石上塑造底栖生物而闻名。然而，尽管它们在珊瑚礁上的重要性很重要，但它们塑造藻类草皮，碎屑和沉积物之间关系的能力仍然未知。因此，我们在大堡礁的两个珊瑚礁上研究了沉积物负荷与藻类草长和碎屑水平之间的关系，该区域在养殖大嘴鲷领土内外。我们发现，尽管沉积物负荷与领土外的藻类草皮紧密耦合，但这种耦合的本质在大头鱼领土内部根本不同，无论沉积物负荷如何，藻类草皮明显更长，碎屑含量较高。