[Coral-List] Benthic cover in the mesophotic and the "sponge increase hypothesis"

[Pawlik, Joseph]

Greetings,

For those of you interested in the ecology of mesophotic reefs, here are three recent contributions with included citations to a lively debate over the "sponge increase hypothesis."
An interesting example of the back-and-forth associated with scientific hypothesis-testing...


Scott, A.R., Battista, T.A., Blum, J.E., Noren, L.N., Pawlik, J.R. 2019.  Patterns of benthic cover with depth on Caribbean mesophotic reefs. Coral Reefs, DOI: 10.1007/s00338-019-01824-6.

Pawlik, J.R., Scott, A.R. 2019.  Sponge density increases with depth throughout the Caribbean: Comment.  Ecosphere, 10(4):e.02689

Scott, A.R., Pawlik, J.R.  2019. A review of the sponge increase hypothesis for Caribbean mesophotic reefs. Marine Biodiversity, 49: 1073-1083

For those of you without library access, you can find PDFs at this site:

http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/pubs2.html

Regards,
Joe

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Joseph R. Pawlik
Frank Hawkins Kenan Distinguished Professor of Marine Biology
Dept. of Biology and Marine Biology
UNCW Center for Marine Science
5600 Marvin K Moss Lane
Wilmington, NC  28409
Office:(910)962-2377; Cell:(910)232-3579
Website: http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/index.html
PDFs: http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/pubs2.html
Video Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/skndiver011
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