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CORAL REEF ECOLOGY

Functional trade-offs in fish communities

Combining pantropical fish community surveys with bioenergetic models has revealed the global distribution of reef-fish ecosystem functions, and that trade-offs linked to demographic and trophic structure prevent any community from maximizing all functions simultaneously.

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Fig. 1: Contrasting patterns in ecosystem functions linked to differences in community structure.

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Correspondence to Matthew McLean.

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McLean, M. Functional trade-offs in fish communities. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 669–670 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01706-1

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