Abstract
Understanding “why species are where they are” at different scales is one of the main focuses of ecological and biogeographical studies. Although ecological features, such as trophic group and species abundance, are thought to be more important for driving co-occurrence patterns at the habitat scale, it is not yet known if phylogenetic constraints can also exert some influence. Here, we studied global co-occurrence patterns of butterflyfishes in relation to species abundance, trophic characteristics, and evolutionary histories, specifically examining two questions—Question (1): does phylogenetic affinity and/or abundance explain co-occurrence at the habitat scale? To answer this, we used abundance data from 23 global localities to evaluate whether phylogenetic affinity alone as well as after accounting for differences in diet among sympatric species explains co-occurrences at the habitat scale. Question (2): are the diets of sister species from the Atlantic Ocean and the Eastern Pacific phylogenetically conserved? To examine this, we used a more detailed diet classification of species present within these realms. We found that phylogenetic distance per se fails to explain the co-occurrence of butterflyfish species pairs. Instead, species abundance exerted a major influence on interspecific co-occurrences. We also found no correlation between phylogenetic distance and diet similarities for Atlantic and East Pacific butterflyfishes; thus, in these regions, species' diets do not seem to be phylogenetically conserved. This suggests that evolutionary processes are not the main drivers of butterflyfish co-occurrence highlighting species' abundance and niche-related processes as the most important factors in determining whether species co-occur at the habitat scale.
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All the data and scripts will be available at the Zenodo platform (https://zenodo.org/record/3895195#.XufO-NrQjIV).
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Acknowledgements
We thank Mauricio Cantor and Luiz Gustavo Rodrigues Oliveira Santos for statistical help and insights. We thank Alana Fraga for assistance with the stomach content analyses. We thank A Bernardi, G Bernardi, E Faria, R Freitas, A Jackson, AM Millán, R Morais, L Rocha and P Vasconcelos for sampling and ield support. We thank A Lindner, B Segal, S Stampar and T Silveira for helping with the identiication of food items, insights and laboratory equipment. We thank P Cowman for providing the phylogeny. We also thank the three anonymous reviewers who helped to improve the manuscript.
Funding
This study was funded by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (Grant numbers 483682/2010-1, 563276/2010-0, 403740/2012-6), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa e Inovação do Estado de Santa Catarina (Grant number 6308/2011-8). The sampling was supported by Chaetodon project [CNPq #483682/2010-1 to SRF], SISBIOTA-Mar [CNPq #563276/2010-0 and FAPESC #6308/2011-8; to SRF], Long Term Ecological Research of Brazilians Oceanic Islands—PELD/ILOC [CNPq #403740/2012-6 to CELF], PROSPEC-Mar [CNPq #458548/2013-8 to Dr. Leticia Veras Costa Lotufo]. LTN and IC received a scholarship from the Brazilian Ministry Educational Council—[CAPES Finance Code 001].
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LTN and SRF conceived the ideas and designed the study; LTN, ACS and BMF collected the data and/or performed statistical analyses; LTN and IC performed the stomach content analyses. LTN, IC, AMRL and CELF contributed to sampling effort; LTN led the writing; all the authors contributed to the writing and discussions. All authors gave final approval for publication.
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We also declare that all individuals were sampled according to the international and national guidelines for sampling. Permission for sampling in Brazil was given by the ICMBio Institute (SISBio #55911-3 and #29953-10 to CEFL; and SISBio #41327-9 to SRF); In Ascension island permission was given by the Conservation Centre of the Ascension Government (ERP-2015-09 to Dr. Renato Morais). Chaetodon robustus individuals were obtained from the University of Cabo Verde (reference collection voucher: UCV 2020/00018-00024).
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Nunes, L.T., Siqueira, A.C., Cord, I. et al. The influence of species abundance, diet and phylogenetic affinity on the co-occurrence of butterflyfishes. Mar Biol 167, 107 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-03725-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-03725-7