Recovery and variation of the coastal fish community following a cold intrusion event in the Penghu Islands, Taiwan
Journal
PLoS ONE
Journal Volume
15
Journal Issue
9-Sep
Date Issued
2020
Author(s)
Chen, H.
Chen, C.-Y.
Shao, K.-T.
Abstract
Knowledge of community resilience aids the development of strategies to mitigate the impacts of a disturbance. An extreme low-seawater temperature event in late January and February 2008 resulted in high fish mortality in the coastal waters of the Penghu Islands, Taiwan. In this study, we used underwater diving visual censuses to analyze fish communities at eight sampling stations along the coast of the Penghu Islands for seven years after the 2008 event. We evaluated community metrics, including species richness, abundance-weighted diversity, average thermal affinity, and average trophic level, and described the temporal variation in select dominant species abundances. Species richness and diversity of the communities required 53 months to reach a steady-state at the sampling stations following the cold water intrusion. The cold event initially reduced community thermal affinity, which then increased throughout the study period, reflecting the recovery of the community to baseline thermal conditions. The increased average trophic level after the cold event implied that the temperature shock decreased the proportion of lower trophic-level fishes. Average trophic level declined as the communities recovered from the disturbance, reflecting the recovery of the community to baseline species composition in terms of feeding habit. Our results suggest that functional diversity may require longer to recover than taxonomic diversity for communities in the Penghu Islands. © 2020 Chen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Other Subjects
sea water; sea water; animal behavior; animal community; Article; cold shock response; cold stress; feeding behavior; fish; nonhuman; population abundance; species diversity; species richness; Taiwan; temperature; thermal affinity; trophic level; water temperature; animal; biodiversity; climate; cold; ecosystem; physiology; Animals; Biodiversity; Climate; Cold Temperature; Ecosystem; Fishes; Seawater; Taiwan
Type
journal article