Recent work has suggested that competition
itself and the derived chaotic dynamics are behind the high diversity
(Huisman and Weissing 1999). Further, the results of Irigoien et al.,
(2004) suggest that in oligotrophic waters the phytoplankton diversity
is low. If such hypothesis is true the phytoplanktonic diversity in
coral reefs should not be different from that of other oligotrophic
water columns and in contrast with the high diversity in benthos and
fish. However, the real planktonic (phyto and zooplankton) diversity is
unknown because the limitations in morphological species determination
on such taxa. In that context I have a particular interest to use the
metagenomic sequencing capacities and knowledge at KAUST to compare the
real richness of the phytoplankton and zooplankton community in
different areas of the Red Sea: Deep oligotrophic but warm waters, in
the areas.
Further, the observed distributions will be
used to develop predictive habitat distribution models. Predictive
habitat distribution models (Guisan & Zimmermann, 2000) are
extremely powerful tools to both predict and understand the
environmental factors determining species and communities distributions.
Such models have been shown to be useful even in plankton (Zarauz et
al., 2008) but can express their maximum potential in habitat with
complex structure. In terrestrial ecology they have been widely used to
setup protected areas in order to preserve particular species or
communities. However in marine ecology they are not so widely used
although having a lot of potential in the determination of marine
protected areas. My intention is to develop habitat distribution models
(General additive or non-parametric multiplicative models) to the coral
ecosystem (corals, fish and invertebrate species) as a function of
physical, biotic and morphological factors (salinity, temperature,
depth, other species, reef structure etc).
Collaborators
