Corals and coral-dwelling crabs – new publication

Can we understand the distribution of coral-dwelling crabs and explore the likely impacts of climate change without taking into account the potential distribution of the coral species that serve as their habitat? This is the question that Ákos Bede-Fazekas, senior lecturer of our department, sought to answer in his research, carried out in collaboration with Chinese, Japanese and Italian researchers. The scientific paper, published in the prestigious (D1, IF = 3.9), geographic journal "Journal of Biogeography", reveals that a much more significant change in the potential distribution of crab species of the genus Trapezia is predicted if the model takes into account not only climate change but also the impact of climate change on the distribution of the corals that are home to crabs. Unfortunately, the species distribution models that researchers use today to estimate the likely impact of climate change still rarely consider the distribution of other species with which the species under study are in biological (e.g. symbiotic) interaction. It is time to change this to get a more accurate estimation of future potential distributions!