Response and plasticity of a cleaning mutualism following short term reductions in habitat availability

Data and code for paper looking at the short term responses of a functionally important marine cleaning mutualism to reductions in habiatat availability. Paper citation:On coral reef ecosystems, cleaning mutualisms where a ‘cleaner’ species removes parasites from a ‘client’ species at dedicated cleaning ‘stations’ on live coral are directly impacted by ongoing declines in live coral due to environmental change.We reduced cleaner fish access to live habitat and identified declines in mutualistm service quality and quantity, as well as recovery following the removal of habitat manipulations.Whilst the functioning of marine cleaning mutualisms declines when habitat availability is reduced, marine cleaning mutualisms may could show a level of resilience via behavioural plasticity in response to short term changes in environmental conditions.