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. 2023 Jun 22;13(6):e10209.
doi: 10.1002/ece3.10209. eCollection 2023 Jun.

Delayed recovery and host specialization may spell disaster for coral-fish mutualism

Catheline Y M Froehlich  1 , O Selma Klanten  2 , Martin L Hing  1 , Mark Dowton  1 , Marian Y L Wong  1
Affiliations

Delayed recovery and host specialization may spell disaster for coral-fish mutualism

Catheline Y M Froehlich et al. Ecol Evol. .

Abstract

Mutualisms are prevalent in many ecosystems, yet little is known about how symbioses are affected by ecological pressures. Here, we show delayed recovery for 13 coral-dwelling goby fishes (genus Gobiodon) compared with their host Acropora corals following four consecutive cyclones and heatwaves. While corals became twice as abundant in 3 years postdisturbances, gobies were only half as abundant relative to predisturbances and half of the goby species disappeared. Although gobies primarily occupied one coral species in greater abundance predisturbances, surviving goby species shifted hosts to newly abundant coral species when their previously occupied hosts became rare postdisturbances. As host specialization is key for goby fitness, shifting hosts may have negative fitness consequences for gobies and corals alike and affect their survival in response to environmental changes. Our study is an early sign that mutualistic partners may not recover similarly from multiple disturbances, and that goby host plasticity, while potentially detrimental, may be the only possibility for early recovery.

Keywords: coral‐dwelling gobies; habitat specificity; host plasticity; multiple disturbances; mutual symbioses; mutualism.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Multiple disturbances changed the mean abundance per transect of Acropora corals (blue) and their symbiotic Gobiodon gobies (red). (a) Following consecutive disturbances (two cyclones and two heatwaves), (b) the 10 most common coral hosts, and (c) their goby symbionts experienced drastic changes in abundance. There were no changes in abundances after the first two disturbances (i.e., each cyclone); however, there were significant changes after the last disturbances (i.e., both bleaching events), and thus, we display changes postdisturbances. Error bars are standard error. Percentages above bars represent the proportion of corals that were occupied by gobies during that particular survey year.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Host specialization of Gobiodon gobies in Acropora coral hosts changed following multiple disturbances. Proportion of all Acropora species used by the 10 most common Gobiodon species from surveys: predisturbances (2014), after cyclone Ita (2015), after cyclone Nathan (2016), after two back‐to‐back heatwaves/bleaching events (2018), and 3 years postdisturbances (2020). Goby species are separated into two categories using the coral richness specificity metric of host specialization as calculated predisturbances. Acronyms next to goby species represent two categories using the proportional coral specificity metric of host specialization: “S” describes host specialists using the same coral species >75% of the time predisturbances, and “G” describes host generalists using the same coral species <75% of the time predisturbances. Letters above each bar represent host use differences among sampling years that are significantly similar to one another within species, and asterisks represent host occupation that is significantly different from all others within a species. If there are no bars, the species was no longer observed or too rare (n < 8). If there are no letters above the bars, these bars were not significantly different from one another for that goby species.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Goby occupancy of different corals at each time point. Data represent the frequency occupancy of Gobiodon goby species per Acropora coral species per time point. The top 10 most commonly occupied species of corals are illustrated here, and all other species are grouped in “other Acropora spp.” Each color represents a different goby species. The thickness of color bars is drawn to scale at each time point to represent the proportion of a specific coral species occupied by each goby species; that is, thicker bars represent corals more occupied by that goby species and thinner bars represent corals less occupied by that goby species. Corals are organized from top to bottom from those that increased in abundance postdisturbances (A. cerealis and A. selago) and to those that decreased in abundance postdisturbances (all other coral species).
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