Biodiversity of Coral Species in Selected Caribbean Regions

Indiana University’s Center for Underwater Science (IU) has been monitoring shipwreck sites in the Florida Keys and Dominican Republic for more than three decades. This paper is a synthesis of all coral species data collected at six sites from 1988 to 2021 to understand biodiversity differences including alpha, beta, and gamma species richness. Our goal is to analyze biodiversity within the context of dispersal and historical legacy. Biodiversity comparisons of sites within the Florida Keys and Caribbean yielded similar results, but in comparing the two ecoregions, results indicated greater differences in biodiversity between rather than within ecoregions. Given these results, possible reasons for the biological trends were studied, including analyzing surface current patterns and the phylogeny of coral species. Results showed that both hypotheses played a role in the current biodiversity of ecoregions. This paper speculates that modern-day anthropogenic causes may be driving differences in biodiversity.