Infographic: Implications Of Coral Reef Complexity On Predators

---

As part of my Marine Vertebrate Ecology and Conservation postgraduate course, our Professor Brandon Godley asked us to design an infographic about a recent paper.

I chose a paper by Rogers, Blanchard, Newman, Dryden & Mumby (2018) called 'High refuge availability on coral reefs increases the vulnerability of reef‐associated predators to overexploitation'. The study finds that coral reefs with intermediate complexity and low refuge density hosts a relatively high number of predators as their prey is more available. Coral reefs with high complexity on the other hand, were shown to have a relatively low predator productivity. This is linked to higher refuge densities making prey less available to predators. Consequently, predator growth rates on highly complex reefs naturally decrease and become more vulnerable to overexploitation by fisheries.

This shows that predators, even in healthy coral reefs, are more susceptible to overexploitation than previously thought!

---

Check out the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2103