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Article: Herbivory and Nutrient Enrichment Effects on Benthic Community Structure and Development on a Hawaiian Reef.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Pacific Science
- Article date:
- January 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 University of Hawaii Press. 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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Jennifer E. Smith [25]
Phase shifts from coral to algal dominance on coral reefs have become increasingly common over the last few decades and have driven researchers to identify potential causes leading to these shifts. Both top down (herbivory) and bottom up (nutrients) factors have been independently implicated as the primary causal mechanism affecting marine algal abundance on coral reefs. These hypotheses tend to be exclusive and do not consider interactive relationships between these two very different processes. It was earlier proposed that using the relative dominance model (RDM) the dominant benthic photosynthetic organisms could be predicted as a ...