The researchers found that reefs with more large, predator fish had healthy levels of nutrients, while reefs depleted of large fish had nearly 50 percent fewer nutrients, including phosphorous and nitrogen, essential to their survival.
"This study is useful to understand alternative ways fishing is affecting coral reef ecosystems," Allgeier said.
The researchers determined that, despite the substantial reduction in fish-mediated nutrients, fishing didn't substantially reduce the number of fish species present. Instead, the large reductions in fish pee were driven by the reduction of large-bodied fish and predator fish such as grouper, snapper or barracuda that occurs through selective fishing practices.
"Simply stated, fish biomass in coral reefs is being reduced by fishing pressure. If biomass is shrinking, there are fewer fish to pee," Allgeier said.Phosphorus in fish pee and nitrogen excreted through their gills are important nutrients for coral reefs to grow. In many reef communities, fish will take shelter in and around coral during the day — peeing out valuable nutrients — then forage for prey in and around the reef by night.
A Science paper in the 1980s showed that coral reefs where fish were present grew at more than double the speed of reefs where fish were absent. It was this study, undertaken by now emeritus research professor Judith Meyer at the University of Georgia, that inspired Allgeier to figure out why fish help coral reefs grow.
Coral reefs are the very definition of a delicate ecosystem. They are highly productive in terms of the biodiversity they support, but there aren't a lot of nutrients to spare. Reefs operate on what scientists call a "tight" nutrient cycle, meaning there must be an efficient transfer of nutrients for coral to grow. This cycle is largely controlled by fish, which hold nutrients in their tissue and then excrete them through their gills and urine.
Allgeier spent four years measuring the amount of nutrients in fish pee and fish tissue to eventually build a massive dataset that tracks fish size and nutrient output and the amount they store in their tissue.
As a graduate student, Allgeier's kitchen on Abaco Island in the Bahamas became his lab, and he caught hundreds of live fish, put them in plastic bags for half an hour, then measured the nutrients in the water before and after. He found that nitrogen output varied consistently with body size among all fish, and that carnivorous fish would pee more phosphorus than smaller herbivores.
Now, with these data serving as the basis for their models, Allgeier and collaborators can estimate the total amount of nutrient output from fish by knowing the species and body size of fish in a coral reef community."It's remarkable how robust the models are just from knowing fish size and species," he added. Coral reefs continue to decline in the Caribbean and worldwide, but curbing fishing practices that target large predator fish could help reefs recover, Allgeier said. The researchers expect this relationship between fish and coral exists in other reefs around the world. Allgeier is currently working with researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to collect data next on fish pee in tropical Pacific Ocean reefs, essentially building upon the data collection Allgeier did as a graduate student. Craig Layman at North Carolina State University is the paper's other co-author and a longtime collaborator of Allgeier on this area of research. This study was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation.
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For more information, contact Allgeier at [email protected] or 502-415-2298. Allgeier will begin international fieldwork on Aug. 18 and is reachable only by email after that date.