Theory 01/Thresholds & Tipping/Coral reef fish
Recruitment Tipping on Patch Size
The claim
Reef fish recruitment collapses below a critical habitat patch size, not in proportion to area lost.
01Mechanism
Larvae settle where adults persist; below the patch size that sustains a local population, settlement fails and the patch empties regardless of how much reef remains nearby.
02Prediction
Recruitment per unit area should fall sharply below a patch-size threshold.
03Refutation
Recruitment proportional to area across patch sizes would remove the threshold.