Abstract:

Aims: The progressive succession of newly formed tropical coral island ecosystems is critical to achieving their long-term sustainability. However, quantitative approaches and reference benchmarks for assessing the successional stages of biological communities remain limited. 

Methods: Based on species distribution records of plants, insects, and birds from 241 tropical islands obtained from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), k-means clustering was conducted to assign islands into distinct climatic and edaphic clusters. A space-for-time substitution approach was applied to construct family- and order-level ecological reference frameworks for community succession within each environmental cluster. Between-stage transition thresholds were determined based on the relative richness of indicator taxa. The resulting framework was used to evaluate the successional stage of a newly formed tropical coral island in China (Island A), which showed the highest similarity to cluster 1 in environmental (i.e., climatic and edaphic) characteristics. 

Results: The plant, insect, and bird communities on Island A corresponded to approximately 10, 10, and 20 years of succession, respectively, within the environmental cluster 1 reference framework, indicating an asynchronous successional pattern among taxa. The bird community exhibited a relatively rapid successional progression compared with the plant and insect communities. 

Conclusion: The ecosystem of Island A remains at an early successional stage. Greater attention should be paid to plant–animal feedbacks and coordinated development among taxa on the island. The ecological reference framework established in this study provides a scientific basis for assessing newly formed island ecosystems that lack long-term monitoring data.

Key words: newly formed tropical coral island, biodiversity, successional reference, community succession, k-means clustering