Priority Effects in the Recruitment of Juvenile Coral Reef Fishes

Abstract

Competing models of community structure in assemblages of coral reef fishes have suggested that (1) these assemblages are structured by deterministic interactions between species, or between species and resources, or (2) the composition of these assemblages are determined by highly variable settlement from planktonic larvae. We examined interactions among newly recruited juvenile fishes and between juvenile fishes and transplanted resident damslfish on artificial reefs in St. Croix, United States Virgin Island. Two kinds of priority effects occurred: (1) recruitment of three species of settling juveniles significantly decreased in the presence of the territorial damselfish, and (2) prior settlement of a juvenile predator lowered successful recruitment of two juvenile prey species. The first effect increases determinism in the structure of coral reef fish assemblages, while the second decreases their predictability.