Cryptic coral community composition across environmental gradients
Fig 5
Environmental drivers of cryptic coral communities.
(a) Estimated importance (cross-validation R2) of depth and four ecoregions to coral community composition across the seascape. (b) Top five out of 40 environmental predictors, based on cross-validation R2 in a gradient forest model. (c-d) Cumulative importance distributions show change in community composition along the range of the two most important variables. Tick marks on the x-axis indicate the environmental values at each site. (c) Coral communities demonstrate steep turnover around 5 meters deep, and (d) communities show graduate turnover across a gradient of yearly pH range. (d) Map of depths around St. Croix, using bathymetry data from GEBCO 2023 Grid (doi:10.5285/f98b053b-0cbc-6c23-e053-6c86abc0af7b). (e) Map of the maximum temperature (averaged from 2010–2022) and derived from interpolation of in situ monitoring data from the Virgin Islands DPNR. Coastlines and district boundaries are plotted with GADM mapping data (https://gadm.org/index.html).