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RECRUITMENT FAILURE, LIFE HISTORIES, AND LONG-TERM DECLINE OF CARIBBEAN CORALS.(Statistical Data Included)
- Article from:
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Ecology
- Article date:
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August 1, 2000
- Author:
- HUGHES, TERENCE P.; TANNER, JASON E.
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Copyright informationCOPYRIGHT 2000 Ecological Society of America. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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TERENCE P. HUGHES [1]
JASON E. TANNER [2]
Abstract. Population decline, local extinction, and recovery are profoundly influenced by variation in demography and life-history traits. In open populations, changes in patterns of recruitment may also have a major influence on the size of local populations, particularly for short-lived organisms. We examine here the demographic processes underlying a slow decline of corals on Jamaican reefs, where coral cover has decreased by fourfold over a 16-yr period. We divided the study into three approximately equal intervals (1977-1982, 1982-1987, and 1987-1993) and constructed size-based transition matrices for each of three ...