Policies designed to address current challenges to the sustainability of fisheries generally use an ecosystem‐based approach – one that incorporates interactions between fishes, fishers, and the environment. Fishing alters the trophic structure among coral reef fish but properly assessing those impacts requires an understanding of how and why that structure varies naturally across scales. Using a combination of small‐ and large‐scale surveys, we generated biomass pyramids for 20 uninhabited Pacific islands, and found that (1) the distribution of reef fish biomass across trophic levels is highly scale dependent: trophic structures that appear top‐heavy at small scales can take a variety of different states when data are integrated across the broader seascape; (2) reefs can have the greatest biomass at intermediate consumer levels, which we describe as “middle‐driven” systems; and (3) in unfished coral reef systems, trophic structure is strongly predicted by energy into the base and middle of the food web, as well as by the interacting effect of water temperature.

中文翻译：

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跨环境梯度的珊瑚礁营养结构的自然变化

旨在应对当前渔业可持续性挑战的政策通常采用基于生态系统的方法，这种方法将鱼类，渔民与环境之间的相互作用结合在一起。捕鱼改变了珊瑚礁鱼类的营养结构，但正确评估这些影响需要了解该结构如何以及为何在尺度上自然变化。通过小规模和大规模调查的组合，我们为20个无人居住的太平洋岛屿生成了生物量金字塔，并发现（1）珊瑚鱼生物量在营养级别上的分布高度依赖于规模：营养结构在重度出现在顶部当将数据整合到更广阔的海景中时，小比例尺可能会处于各种不同的状态；（2）在中等消费水平上，珊瑚礁的生物量最大。我们将其描述为“中间驱动”系统；（3）在未捕捞的珊瑚礁系统中，通过进入食物网底部和中间的能量以及水温的相互作用，强烈预测了营养结构。