Abstract

Guest-host interactions as diversity drivers in coral reefs

Pérez-Botello, AM; Sotelo-Casas, RC ; González-Muñoz R, Dáttilo W;  Simões N

Despite being often ignored, the diversity of ecological interactions is one of the main facets of biodiversity. At coral reefs, the guest-host interactions have been recognized as an important speciation mechanism and structuring of the biodiversity present in this underwater ecosystem. The present work analyses the organization of the interaction networks involving three major host groups: cnidaria, echinoderms, and sponges, present at the American Tropical coral reefs. These host organisms share a particular characteristic, they all provide shelter and food sources to a wide range of sessile and mobile animals. Specifically, we describe the organization of the interaction network and the roles of some individual species, measuring the Nestedness (i.e., the extent to which the interaction partners of one species present a subset of the interaction partners of another species), the Modularity (i.e., the propensity of different subsets of species in the network to interact more frequently with each other than with the rest of the species in the network) and the centrality (i.e., structural importance of a species in the network). With this approach, we model the importance of guest-host interactions in maintaining biodiversity and define which species could be keystones in the American Atlantic coral reefs.