Journal of Animal Ecology最新文献

{"title":"From thermoregulation to photoregulation: Ultraviolet radiation exposure is regulated by lizard behaviours.","authors":"Eric J Gangloff","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70354","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Research Highlight: Lattanzio, M. S. (2026). Beyond thermoregulation: Active behavioural regulation of ultraviolet light exposure by a free-ranging lizard. Journal of Animal Ecology, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70321. Exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UV) is both inevitable to any diurnal organism and a biological necessity for many animals. In many vertebrates, including lizards, UV exposure prompts important biological processes such as the endogenous production of vitamin D₃. Overexposure, however, can damage DNA, cells and tissues. Despite an extensive literature on how heliothermic lizards regulate body temperatures in heterogeneous environments by moving between areas with different levels of sun exposure, very little attention has been given to how these organisms might also regulate UV exposure. In a study combining laboratory experiments to assess preferred body temperatures and levels of UV exposure and field observations of lizards in contrasting environments, Lattanzio (2026) demonstrates that ornate tree lizards (Urosaurus ornatus) are capable of effectively maintaining preferred body temperatures in environments with and without plentiful shade access. At the same time, lizards could effectively regulate their levels of UV exposure in environments with shade, but were poor at doing so on tree snags without sufficient cover. This suggests that lizards may suffer consequences, either due to the physiological impacts of overexposure to UV or due to behavioural trade-offs, in these environments. Establishing the ecological relevance of UV exposure to lizard physiology, behaviours and life-histories provides direction to exciting new research avenues, expanding the field of lizard thermoregulation to additional axes of environmental variation.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149069582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Direct, but not indirect, predation-risk cues deter larval settlement in a scyphozoan jellyfish.","authors":"Lucas H Gimenez, Anthony R Carroll, Kylie A Pitt","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70357","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70357","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Settlement represents a key transition from dispersal to recruitment, during which predation can strongly influence population dynamics through both consumptive and non-consumptive effects. Predation generates chemical cues that convey information about the presence of predators, attacks on prey, ingestion of prey and post-attack conditions. Predation-risk cues can be direct, when emitted by the predator itself, or indirect, when released by prey, yet how larvae respond to these cues during settlement remains poorly understood in many systems. Here, we assessed how larvae of the scyphozoan jellyfish Aurelia coerulea respond to different predation-risk cues by conducting four experiments manipulating predator kairomones, conspecific alarm cues, conspecific post-attack cues and predator diet cues. We hypothesised that settlement responses would depend on the information provided by cues, with an avoidance response expected for those indicating direct predation risk. Settlement was deterred in response to direct cues (predator kairomones) and the combination of direct and indirect cues (predator kairomones with conspecific alarm cues). In contrast, settlement was unaffected by indirect cues alone (conspecific post-attack cues) and cues not associated with predation (mechanical damage cues). In addition, predator diet cues had no further effect beyond that of predator kairomones alone. These results suggest that larval behaviour is shaped by predation risk, with information about the presence of predators playing a key role in eliciting antipredator responses during settlement. Our findings provide mechanistic evidence for understanding how predation-risk cues mediate non-consumptive effects during habitat selection in organisms with complex life cycles, highlighting how antipredator responses during a critical life-history transition can influence recruitment success.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149061248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evidence of parental care as a newly identified reproductive isolating barrier.","authors":"Colby Behrens, Meghan F Maciejewski, Alexandra Sumarli, Gina Lucas, German Lagunas-Robles, Kieran Samuk, Alison M Bell","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70348","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1365-2656.70348","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Variation in behaviour can contribute to reproductive isolation by preventing gene flow among populations. Here, we tested the novel hypothesis that parental care, when dysregulated, can function as a reproductive isolating mechanism in three-spined stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus). In the typical 'common' stickleback ecotype, males provide care to their offspring by fanning with their pectoral fins and defending their nest. By contrast, a divergent 'white' stickleback ecotype has evolutionarily lost care and disperses embryos into the surrounding environment. We examined how paternal care from common, white and F1 hybrid fathers influenced offspring survival. We detected no intrinsic incompatibilities in embryos, but F1 hybrid fathers exhibited dysregulated parental care that coincided with decreased survival of parented offspring. The increased offspring mortality may be explained by further dysregulation of feeding and parenting circuitry, as F2 hybrids exhibited significantly higher rates of post-fertilization filial cannibalism than common or white fathers. Additionally, despite strong divergence in nesting-building and courtship behaviour, F1 hybrids achieved mating success at a similar rate as male commons and whites, suggesting that prezygotic barriers against hybrids may be weak. The observed postzygotic isolation, and potentially weak prezygotic isolation in lab-based studies, suggest that hybridization is likely occurring at low rates in the wild. Population genetic analysis supported this, as low proportions of putative hybrids were detected in sympatric sites. Together, these results may help explain why genetic divergence between these phenotypically distinct ecotypes is low and provide evidence that dysregulated parental behaviour can act as a newly discovered postzygotic reproductive isolating barrier.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149024819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Combined influence of parasites and temperature on nutrient excretion rates and body stoichiometry of a freshwater fish.","authors":"Carrie Ann Sharitt, Roxane Maranger, Sandra A Binning, Jeremy De Bonville, Michael J Vanni","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70353","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70353","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Animal-mediated nutrient cycling is a key component of zoogeochemistry and is impacted by a variety of factors including external drivers such as temperature. In aquatic environments, warming water temperatures exacerbated by climate change may increase nutrient release by animals. However, there is much variability in the rate of predicted increases in nutrient release due to warming. Climate change is also expected to influence parasite transmission, likely affecting the health of host animals, with potential implications for feedbacks on ecosystems. Yet, ecologists often ignore the influence of parasites when conducting research on animal-mediated nutrient cycling at individual, population and ecosystem levels. Thus, there is a need for studies that examine how warming, parasites and their interaction affect nutrient cycling of potential hosts. We measured element excretion rates and body elemental composition of a common freshwater fish, pumpkinseed sunfish (Lepomis gibbosus), across a range of natural parasite intensity and at three experimental temperatures (20, 25 and 30°C), simulating actual and projected future climate scenarios. After acclimating fish to experimental temperatures, we quantified their excretion rates (NH₄ ⁺, PO₄ ^- and DOC) as well as the C, N and P concentrations in their bodies, in an effort to examine the singular and potentially additive and interactive effects of these dual stressors (elevated temperature and parasite infection). Excretion rates varied among temperature treatments with C, N and P each responding uniquely. C and P excretion rates increased with temperature but decreased with parasite intensity; furthermore, these factors acted interactively, with stronger parasite effects at higher temperatures. C and N concentrations in fish bodies (per unit dry mass) declined significantly with parasite intensity, as did body N:P ratio, indicating poor fish health. Our results suggest that these dual stressors related to climate change will likely impact elements sequestered by animals and rates at which they release elements to ecosystems, thereby potentially affecting zoogeochemical cycles.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149012281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Niche occupancy of Jamaican bat caves: Diversity increases isotopic niche packing.","authors":"Phillip J Oelbaum, Ronald P Hall, Damion L Whyte, Nicholas A Lee, Ronald S Stewart, Jerrica M Jamison, Kenneth C Welch","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70349","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There are over 1000 documented caves across Jamaica, many of them used by diverse communities of bats. Species across these communities fit within the same trophic guilds and families and can be found at the same sites, raising the question of how these species can coexist. We calculated mean isotopic niche breadth and overlap of the communities at these sites and used general linear models to test two hypotheses: in communities with greater species richness, (1) populations will be (a) more specialized and/or (b) overlap between populations will increase (sensu niche packing), or (2) community niche space will increase (sensu niche expansion). We found significant heterogeneity in niche breadth at the population level and significant heterogeneity in overlap across sites. Jamaican cave-roosting bat communities achieve coexistence through niche packing and not through niche expansion. We found support for niche packing through increasing overlap in some groups and no evidence for niche packing through specialization. More speciose sites had greater overlap among populations within the same cave and lower nearest neighbour distance, suggesting packing within the community niche space. Our results demonstrate niche packing as the operative mechanism of coexistence among diverse Jamaican bat caves.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149012259","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Paler within the city: Carotenoid-based colouration covaries negatively with the proportion of impervious surface in great tit (Parus major) territories across Europe.","authors":"Nicolas Bekka, Lisa Sandmeyer, Nitha Chardine, Marcel Eens, Tapio Eeva, Arnaud Gregoire, Andrea S Grunst, Melissa L Grunst, Caroline Isaksson, Katarzyna Janas, Pablo Salmón, Marta Szulkin, Clotilde Biard","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70355","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Urbanisation alters resource availability and exposes wildlife to novel environmental stressors, potentially driving phenotypic divergence. Carotenoid-based plumage colouration is a condition-dependent trait linked to dietary carotenoid acquisition and physiological allocation trade-offs. Although urban populations are often reported to exhibit paler carotenoid colouration than rural populations, these patterns have rarely been tested along continuous fine-scale urbanisation gradients at a continental scale. We investigated how reflectance parameters of the yellow breast plumage of adult Great Tit (Parus major) covary with territory-scale local imperviousness, used here as a broad descriptor of urban habitat structure, across six European cities. Using 838 adult observations spanning 2005-2024 and sub-meter-resolution satellite imagery, we quantified the proportion of impervious surface within 100 m of nest boxes and related this metric to feather carotenoid chroma, brightness and UV chroma. Carotenoid chroma declined significantly with increasing impervious surface cover within breeding territories across Europe, corresponding to an expected decrease of 0.053 chroma units across the observed 0%-88% imperviousness gradient. This relationship remained robust across bootstrap resampling, leave-one-city-out analyses and models controlling for among-city variation in mean carotenoid chroma. Older individuals exhibited higher carotenoid chroma than yearlings, while males tended to be more chromatic and brighter than females. Impervious surface cover was not associated with feather brightness or UV chroma, indicating that urban habitat structure is linked specifically to carotenoid pigment deposition rather than feather structural properties and overall quality. Because carotenoid-based colouration depends on dietary intake, higher levels of impervious cover and reduced vegetation may reflect lower availability of carotenoid-rich resources in urban territories, although imperviousness should be interpreted as a multifactorial habitat descriptor rather than a direct mechanistic proxy. Our study provides the first continent-scale evidence that carotenoid-based colouration declines along a continuous urbanisation gradient. These findings identify plumage carotenoid chroma as a phenotypic correlate of local imperviousness within European cities and highlight the importance of fine-scale habitat characterisation for understanding phenotypic responses to urbanisation. Future studies should test the mechanistic links between territory-scale imperviousness, diet composition, pollutant exposure, physiological condition and fitness.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148990077","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Contrasting associations between parental coordination and breeding success in albatrosses across differing environmental contexts.","authors":"Natasha Gillies, Richard A Phillips, Henri Weimerskirch, Jonathan R Potts, Denis Réale, Alastair J Wilson, Frédéric Angelier, Christophe Barbraud, Ashley Bennison, Karine Delord, Prescillia Lemesle, Samuel Peroteau, Andrew G Wood, José C Xavier, Samantha C Patrick","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70350","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Understanding how animals acquire resources and allocate them to reproduction is fundamental for identifying the factors shaping fitness. In species with biparental care, both the amount each parent invests and how well their efforts are coordinated can influence reproductive success. Yet the benefits of coordination are unlikely to be universal and instead may depend strongly on species' ecology and environmental context. Despite this, many studies still focus on one parent in isolation, overlooking the potential importance of joint investment strategies. Here, we examined how parental effort and coordination, measured here as the relative investment of both parents, influenced breeding success in black-browed Thalassarche melanophris and wandering albatrosses Diomedea exulans across colonies characterised by differing levels of environmental variability. We found that the influence of parental coordination on breeding success differed between species, breeding stages, and sites. Longer foraging trips improved annual breeding success during incubation for black-browed albatrosses, whereas the effect of longer trips during brooding varied between sites subject to differing environmental variability. Similarity in the predictability and duration of partners' foraging trips was associated with higher breeding success at sites with higher environmental stability in both species but had little effect where conditions were more variable. This suggests that patterns of reproductive investment may differ according to environmental context, potentially reflecting a shift toward individual flexibility in more unpredictable conditions. Our findings underscore the importance of considering both parents' contributions when linking reproductive strategies to breeding outcomes and highlight how observed differences in breeding success across colonies may reflect shifts in the trade-offs between self-maintenance and offspring investment within varying environmental contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148976291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reproductive value as a key concept in ecology and evolutionary biology.","authors":"Jean-Dominique Lebreton, Madan K Oli","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70343","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Reproductive value (RV), originally introduced by Fisher, remains a central concept in population biology. Although most commonly associated with matrix population models, RV has much broader significance because it provides a natural weighting of future contribution within structured biological systems. Whenever individuals, stages, social states, infection classes or habitat patches differ in their influence on long-term population dynamics, RV appears naturally as a common currency for evaluating their contribution to future population trajectories. Here, we synthesise the role of RV across ecology, evolutionary biology, epidemiology and wildlife conservation and management. We examine how RV enters analyses of demographic sensitivities and elasticities, transient population dynamics, life-history evolution, source-sink structure, infectious disease dynamics and the demographic consequences of harvest or environmental perturbation. Whatever the context, the common theme is that present states contribute unequally to future population trajectories. RV also provides a natural link between demography and evolution because it weights the future consequences of survival and reproduction across the life cycle. Traits expressed in individuals or stages with high RV often have disproportionately large effects on population growth, persistence, recovery and fitness-related measures in structured populations. Differences in the distribution of RV among life histories may also contribute to variation in resilience, transient dynamics and responses to environmental disturbance. RV also provides a biologically interpretable basis for conservation and management. Protecting individuals, stages or locations associated with high RV often yields disproportionately large benefits for long-term persistence, whereas harvest or culling directed toward those same classes can strongly depress population growth and recovery. Conversely, management focused on low-RV stages or subpopulations may sometimes reduce demographic impact while maintaining yield or disease control. By linking demographic structure to future population trajectories, RV helps identify the individuals, classes or locations most likely to influence persistence, recovery and management outcomes. Our synthesis highlights why RV repeatedly reappears across diverse areas of population biology. Although RV does not by itself resolve every complexity of ecological or evolutionary dynamics, it provides a powerful framework for understanding how demographic, spatial, evolutionary and epidemiological processes shape the future trajectories of structured populations.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148976794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Early-life environment drives long-term decrease in adult body mass in a wild bird population.","authors":"David López-Idiáquez, Ella F Cole, Devi Satarkar, Samuel J Crofts, Keith McMahon, Ben C Sheldon","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70352","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Body mass is a key organismal characteristic that impacts many physiological and ecological processes and is often a strong determinant of fitness. Many recent studies have documented temporal phenotypic changes in this trait in wild animal populations, but identifying the mechanisms underpinning these changes can be difficult. While most research conducted to date has focused on temperature changes as a driver of these trends, the relevance of other environmental variables remains to be analysed, limiting our understanding of the factors driving these changes. Here, we use 47 years of data to decompose mechanisms behind temporal changes in adult and nestling body mass in a great tit Parus major population in Wytham Woods (UK). Further, we link those changes to temperature, the main driver of temporal trends in mass according to the literature, and to two other environmental variables previously recognised as drivers of body mass: intra- and inter-specific competition and temporal mismatch with a key prey during breeding, winter moth Operophtera brumata caterpillars. At the population level, we report a marked decrease in body mass in adults between 1978 and 2024 (-0.042 Haldanes; -0.020 g year^-1) and show that this results from phenotypic plasticity, driven by a negative between-cohort trend likely reflecting carry-over effects of the early environment. Within cohorts, however, trends were consistently positive, reflecting an age-dependent mass increase. The temporal change in adults was paralleled by a change in nestling body mass (-0.036 Haldanes). Nestling mass was negatively associated with estimated intensity of intraspecific competition, as well as inter-specific competition from blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus, as quantified by local population density. These effects carried over to adulthood, as shown by a negative association between adult mass and the population density of great tits and blue tits experienced in early life. Seasonal and developmental temperature, and mismatch with the caterpillar food supply, despite being associated with adult and nestling mass, did not explain the observed declines in mass. Our results illustrate the potential for effects mediated early in development to carry over into long-term phenotypic change at later life-history stages, and emphasise the importance of considering different environmental variables as drivers of phenotypic change in natural populations.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148919368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rapid loss, and slow recovery, of coral reef structural complexity resulting from a prolonged marine heatwave.","authors":"Kevin A Bruce, John H R Burns, Dominique G Maucieri, Kailey Pascoe, Julia K Baum","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70347","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Globally, climate change-driven marine heatwaves are causing increased coral bleaching and mortality events with cascading effects, including reef habitat complexity. Given that habitat complexity positively influences biodiversity and organismal abundance, such losses have negative ramifications for these ecosystems. Past studies have documented habitat complexity changes following heatwaves, yet the timing and persistence of habitat structural complexity losses arising from these events, and subsequent recovery rates, remain largely unknown. Here, we used Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry to survey permanent shallow forereef quadrats (4 m × 4 m; n = 30) in the central equatorial Pacific Ocean at the epicentre of the third global coral bleaching event, the 2015-2016 El Niño, prior to, during and after the event. Reef three-dimensional habitat complexity metrics calculated from the SfM images were then used to examine the immediate and long-term impacts of the mass coral mortality. Coral reef structural habitat complexity, quantified as surface complexity (1.18-fold decline), vector ruggedness measure (VRM; 1.52-fold decline) and fractal dimension (1.03-fold decline), declined significantly during the heatwave. However, contrary to expectation, no subsequent loss (i.e. due to erosion of dead coral colonies) was detected. We found that exposure to underlying local anthropogenic disturbance had already reduced reef complexity before the heatwave, such that the least disturbed sites showed the largest habitat complexity losses from it. All three complexity metrics increased significantly between 2017 and 2019, but not to pre-heatwave levels. Furthermore, through fine-scale morphological classification of the substrate, we show that all coral structure (regardless of whether dead or alive) contributed to habitat complexity, and that live submassive coral had the strongest correlation to the complexity metrics despite it seldom being mentioned in the literature as a morphology providing structural complexity. Morphologies contributing to habitat complexity also shifted over time, as more thermally sensitive corals (e.g. branching, foliose and tabulate) experienced much greater losses than thermally tolerant ones (e.g. submassive and massive). Our results illustrate how rapidly habitat complexity can be lost during climate change induced mass mortality events and imply complexity will be comprised of distinct coral morphologies on future coral reefs and that recovery will take many years.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148919532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}