Alleopathy and spatial competition among coral reef invertebrates
- 1 December 1975
- journal article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Vol. 72 (12), 5160-5163
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.72.12.5160
Abstract
Species of ectoprocts and solitary encrusting animals were subjected in aquaria to homogenates of 11 sympatric species of sponges and colonial ascidians. Five of the nine sponge species and one of the two ascidian species exhibited species-specific allelochemical effects. Evidence suggests that alleochemical provide a wide-spread, specific, and complex mechanism for interference competition for space among natural populations of coral reef organisms. The existence of such species-specific mechanisms may provide a basis for maintenance of diversity in space-limited systems in the absence of high levels of predation and physical disturbance.Keywords
This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit:
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