Metabarcoding the Bacterial Assemblages Associated with in the Mexican Central Pacific.

The Mexican Central Pacific (MCP) region has discontinuous coral ecosystems with different protection and anthropogenic disturbance. Characterizing the bacterial assemblage associated with the sea urchin and its relationship with environmental variables will contribute to understanding the species' physiology and ecology. We collected sea urchins from coral ecosystems at six sites in the MCP during the summer and winter for two consecutive years.

Taxonomical and functional diversity dynamics of conspicuous echinoderms in the northeastern tropical Pacific over a decade.

Understanding what determines spatio-temporal changes in echinoderm assemblages from an integrative perspective that considers biodiversity, species evenness, and species' niches could permit superior community-scale characterizations of habitat resilience to disturbance. Such an approach was taken herein by tracking a Central Mexican Pacific echinoderm assemblage between 2012 and 2021, and higher richness, diversity, evenness, and functional entity counts were associated with more heterogeneous benthic assemblages. Echinoderm taxonomic composition was influenced by ENSO events, with higher functional diversity found during La Niña events.

Coral calcification and carbonate production in the eastern tropical Pacific: The role of branching and massive corals in the reef maintenance.

Hermatypic corals have the potential to construct calcium carbonate (CaCO ) reef-framework, maintain habitats tridimensionality and contribute to both the biogeochemical and the geo-ecological functionality of coral reefs. However, in the past decades, coral reef growth capacity has been affected by multiple and cumulative anthropogenic stressors, threating the reef functionality and their ecosystem goods and services provision to humankind. This study evaluated temporal changes in geobiological growth characteristics as a function of live coral cover, calcification rate (extension rate and skeletal density) and coral carbonate production at Islas Marias archipelago from the eastern tropical Pacific, using historical data obtained in 2007 (López-Pérez et al.

The complete mitogenome of excavating sponge (Demospongiae, Tetractinellida, Thoosidae) from Northeastern Tropical Pacific.

The complete mitogenome of Carballo, Cruz-Barraza & Gómez, 2004 (Tetractinellida, Thoosidae) was sequenced. This is the first complete mitogenome of the suborden Thoosina and the third Tetractinellid so far. The mitochondrial genome of was assembled based on reads obtained with the Illumina HiSeq platform.

Micro-Fragmentation as an Effective and Applied Tool to Restore Remote Reefs in the Eastern Tropical Pacific.

Coral reef ecosystems are continuously degraded by anthropogenic and climate change drivers, causing a widespread decline in reef biodiversity and associated goods and services. In response, active restoration methodologies and practices have been developed globally to compensate for losses due to reef degradation. Yet, most activities employ the gardening concept that uses coral nurseries, and are centered in easily-accessible reefs, with existing infrastructure, and impractical for coral reefs in remote locations.

Calcification and growth rate recovery of the reef-building species in the northeast tropical Pacific following an ENSO disturbance.

Pocilloporids are one of the major reef-building corals in the eastern tropical Pacific (ETP) and also the most affected by thermal stress events, mainly those associated with El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) periods. To date, coral growth parameters have been poorly reported in species in the northeastern region of the tropical Pacific. Monthly and annual growth rates of the three most abundant morphospecies (, , and ) were evaluated during two annual periods at a site on the Pacific coast of Mexico.

Correction: Coral Reef Health Indices versus the Biological, Ecological and Functional Diversity of Fish and Coral Assemblages in the Caribbean Sea.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

First deep screening of bacterial assemblages associated with corals of the Tropical Eastern Pacific.

Bacterial assemblages associated with the hermatypic corals Pocillopora damicornis and P. verrucosa, the surrounding seawater and the sediment at six coral reef sites in the north section of the Tropical Eastern Pacific were assessed using MiSeq Illumina sequencing of the V4 region of the 16S rDNA. The bacterial microbiota in both coral species, seawater and sediment were stable to seasonal variations.

Coral Reef Health Indices versus the Biological, Ecological and Functional Diversity of Fish and Coral Assemblages in the Caribbean Sea.

This study evaluated the relationship between the indices known as the Reef Health Index (RHI) and two-dimensional Coral Health Index (2D-CHI) and different representative metrics of biological, ecological and functional diversity of fish and corals in 101 reef sites located across seven zones in the western Caribbean Sea. Species richness and average taxonomic distinctness were used to asses biological estimation; while ecological diversity was evaluated with the indices of Shannon diversity and Pielou´s evenness, as well as by taxonomic diversity and distinctness. Functional diversity considered the number of functional groups, the Shannon diversity and the functional Pielou´s evenness.