Nutrients moving across ecosystems can propagate through food webs via distinct trophic pathways. Their integration into food webs is often mediated by small, abundant taxa that channel subsidies from primary producers to higher trophic levels. On coral reefs, cryptobenthic fishes and invertebrates can fill these roles, yet their responses to allochthonous nutrients are poorly understood. We compared cryptofaunal communities a...

Coral reefs receive both passive and active nutrient subsidies, supplied via oceanographic processes and animal-mediated transfer, which can bolster reef productivity and resilience to disturbance. We examined the relative importance of these two pathways across lagoonal and seaward reefs, reefs of different depths, and those around islands either with or without breeding seabird colonies using carbon and nitrogen stable isoto...