• 1. The coralligenous habitat was studied at the large Mediterranean scale, by applying a standardized, non‐destructive photo‐sampling protocol, developed in the framework of the CIGESMED project.
• 2. The results provided evidence to support the following statements: (a) the assemblage pattern is not homogeneously distributed across the four Mediterranean ecoregions studied (biotic gradients hypothesis); and (b) the assemblage pattern does not change significantly when the information is aggregated to higher taxonomic levels (taxonomic sufficiency hypothesis).
• 3. Surrogate taxonomic categories higher than species, such as genus and family, can be used to reveal the multivariate pattern of the coralligenous assemblages.
• 4. Although preliminary at the pan‐Mediterranean scale, these outcomes set the scene for future comparisons as more data sets become available but also for comparisons between taxonomic and functional patterns.

中文翻译：

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沿地分布的珊瑚群：概念和对管理的影响测试

• 1.通过应用在CIGESMED项目框架内开发的标准化，无损照片采样协议，在地中海大尺度上对珊瑚生境进行了研究。
• 2.结果提供了支持以下陈述的证据：（a）在所研究的四个地中海生态区中，其分布方式不是均匀分布的（生物梯度假说）；（b）当信息汇总到更高的分类标准时（分类充分性假设），组合模式不会发生显着变化。
• 3.可以使用高于物种的替代分类学类别，例如属和科，来揭示珊瑚群落的多元格局。
• 4.尽管这些结果在泛地中海范围内是初步的，但随着更多数据集的获得，这些结果为将来进行比较奠定了基础，也为分类学和功能模式之间的比较提供了依据。