Marine Protected Areas Tools for Sustaining Ocean Ecosystems (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Monitoring, Research, and Modeling
Monitoring, Research, and Modeling
Pages 126-144
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From page 126... ...
Establishment of reserves will provide scientists with opportunities to close these gaps and develop more effective tools for marine conservation. MONITORING PROGRAMS Monitoring is an integral component of marine area management; it provides the data required to evaluate changes in marine ecosystems as a result of the implementation of MPAs, especially areas zoned as ecological or fishery reserves.
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From page 127... ...
Monitoring programs provide managers with crucial information for evaluating the current status of protected areas and the efficacy of conservation measures. For researchers, monitoring programs provide valuable data that are needed to identify trends in the health of living resources, trends that reveal fundamental features of how ecosystems function and help scientists distinguish between changes that are the result of human influences and those that are natural environmental fluctuations.
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From page 128... ...
Taxonomic expertise is necessary to identify the early life stages of various species to assess changes in recruitment success due to reserves. A1though the taxonomy of most fish is well known, there are currently few scientists capable of identifying a large number of invertebrate and algal taxa in marine ecosystems.
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From page 129... ...
Studies in the Leigh Marine Reserve in New Zealand indicated that target fish species can act as keystone predators whose removal causes strong shifts from sea urchin barrens to kelp-dominated ecosystems (Babcock et al., 1999~. More recently, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS)
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From page 130... ...
Lucia Dry Tortugas Lac Cruces, Chile Saba Belize Australian Intertidal Beaches Florida Keys Mafia Island, Tanzania Fish Fish Fish Fish Fish Fish Fish Fish, urchins, lobsters Fish algae, urchins, lobsters Fish, urchins, algae, corals, snails Urchins Lobsters Sessile invertebrates, algae, mobile invertebrates, plankton Fish, corals, gorgonians, sponges, habitat complexity Fish and habitat complexity Snails Corals, algae, lobster, fish, recruitment herbivory Corals, fish, algae, environmental quality, habitat, human activities Bennett and Attwood, 1991 Jennings and Polunin, 1997 Bayle-Sempere et al., 1994 Bell, 1983 Russ and Alcala, 1989 Garcia-Rubies and Zabala, 1990 Ault et al., 1998 Cole et al., 1990 Babcock et al., 1999 McClanahan and Shafir, 1990 Smith and Berkes, 1991 Davis, 1977 Castilla and Duran, 1985 Roberts, 1996 Polunin and Roberts, 1993 Keough et al., 1993 Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, 1999 Agardy, 1997 groups of invertebrates and fish to gain wider coverage of the ecologically important components of ecosystems. For example, fish biodiversity tends to increase with greater habitat complexity.
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From page 131... ...
An important component of reserve monitoring programs should be the development of recruitment indices, a measure of reproductive success, for target species. Growth and mortality rates of species that are targeted by fisheries within and outside reserves should be monitored to assess the effects of the reserve on productivity and provide estimates of natural mortality for use in stock assessment models.
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From page 132... ...
For instance, failure of reserves along the north coast of Jamaica to rebound in fish population sizes, despite rebounds elsewhere in the Caribbean, suggests a regional collapse of larval availability due to long-term overfishing in Jamaica. Likewise, rapid recovery of certain fish and lobsters in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary shows that aspects of the keys ecosystem can recover from current ecological stresses.
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From page 133... ...
suggest that some reserves are likely to be sources for larvae that may recruit far downstream, whereas others may serve as sinks, with no suitable downstream areas for settlement of juveniles. These potential patterns should be tested against observed measurements of average larval dispersal from existing reserves, but such measurements are not yet available.
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From page 134... ...
To quote from the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution (GESAMP, 1996) publication: Baselines and monitoring that document public perceptions and governance procedures should be in place from the beginning, so that the social sciences can be applied to overcoming social problems and the effectiveness of governance can be assessed and appropriate actions taken.
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From page 135... ...
Furthermore, basic research in marine ecology and research involving the study of reserves are mutually beneficial. Whereas theories of marine ecology are essential for formulating hypotheses on the optimal design of reserves, reserves provide unparalleled opportunities for testing hypotheses in marine ecology, especially those involving predictions about effects occurring over wide spatial and temporal scales and effects of human impacts on marine ecosystems.
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From page 136... ...
(2000) noted that simple advection models might overestimate larval dispersal distances, indicating the need to understand larval retention mechanisms and their role in promoting local recruitment.
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From page 137... ...
For example, do species with longlived pelagic larval or juvenile stages have greater genetic homogeneity across their full biogeographic range than species with brief larval or juvenile stages? Is there enough dispersal to provide sufficient gene flow to prevent the divergence of genomes in widely separated populations?
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From page 138... ...
Hence, it is essential that increased attention be given to nonfished species that play important roles in marine ecosystems. Biodiversity The effects of reserves on Biodiversity at a regional scale are even more poorly understood than the regional effects of reserves designed for fishery enhancement.
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From page 139... ...
The reserve's contribution to stocks in unprotected waters may be evaluated, to a first approximation based on the dispersal distances and number of marked adults recaptured outside the reserve. Mark-recapture studies may also provide insights into temporal changes within a reserve.
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From page 140... ...
Research on such processes in reserves will allow efficient, spatially explicit strategies to be developed that will advance understanding of population dynamics over a range of spatial scales. Models of population growth and regulation frequently include parameters that express impacts of changing densities on egg production, recruitment, individual growth, and survival, but information about effects of density is frequently difficult to obtain.
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From page 141... ...
Reserves could provide areas where fishing mortality rates are essentially zero, greatly facilitating estimation of the natural mortality rate, provided migration is low or can be estimated by tagging studies. What Types of Research Should Be Allowable in Marine Reserves and Protected Areas?
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From page 142... ...
Some of the national marine sanctuaries have committees for this purpose (e.g., see information on the Research Activities Panel of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary at http:/ /www.mbnms.nos.noaa.gov) , and the general adoption of such review panels seems warranted in any reserve in which research, beyond monitoring, is to take place.
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From page 143... ...
In contrast, marine reserve models typically focus on single species, with an emphasis on population dynamics under conditions of human exploitation. Gerber et al.
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From page 144... ...
Multispecies and Trophic Models A great majority of marine reserve models focus on the population dynamics of single species. Even though they are complex in their treatment of fishing mortality rates and population subdivision, in most cases, the population size of only one species is considered.
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