[Coral-List] Keystone species on Panama reefs
Peter Sale
sale at uwindsor.ca
Wed Sep 10 14:13:42 EDT 2014
Hi Connie, and listers,
Your question came without much background on reasons for seeking this
information. I've now seen a couple of replies suggesting some possible
keystone species.
Just for the record, ecosystems do not have to include keystone species.
When Bob Paine first introduced the term, he indicated that sometimes
there are species in a system that by virtue of the way they carry out
their activities have a profound impact on the structure (pattern of
species abundances and species presence) of the system. If such species
are removed, the structure of the system can change rapidly and
dramatically. This does not mean that every ecological system contains,
or should contain, or used to contain, one or more keystone species.
As to whether there are species on Panama reefs that could be seen as
keystones, I will leave that to others
Peter
sale at uwindsor.ca @PeterSale3
www.uwindsor.ca/sale www.petersalebooks.com
More information about the Coral-List
mailing list