Identifying the rates of recovery of fish in no-take areas is fundamental to designing protected area networks, managing fisheries, estimating yields, identifying ecological interactions, and informing stakeholders about the outcomes of this management. Here we study the recovery of coral reef fishes through 37 years of protection using a space-for-time chronosequence of four marine national parks in Kenya. Using AIC model selection techniques, we assessed recovery trends using five ecologically meaningful production models: asymptotic, Ricker, logistic, linear, and exponential. There were clear recovery trends with time for species richness, total and size class density, and wet masses at the level of the taxonomic family. Species richness recovered rapidly to an asymptote at 10 years. The two main herbivorous families displayed differing responses to protection, scarids recovering rapidly, but then exhibiting some decline while acanthurids recovered more slowly and steadily throughout the study. Recovery of the two invertebrate-eating groups suggested competitive interactions over resources, with the labrids recovering more rapidly before a decline and the balistids demonstrating a slower logistic recovery. Remaining families displayed differing trends with time, with a general pattern of decline in smaller size classes or small-bodied species after an initial recovery, which suggests that some species- and size-related competitive and predatory control occurs in older closures. There appears to be an ecological succession of dominance with an initial rapid rise in labrids and scarids, followed by a slower rise in balistids and acanthurids, an associated decline in sea urchins, and an ultimate dominance in calcifying algae. Our results indicate that the unfished "equilibrium" biomass of the fish assemblage > 10 cm is 1100-1200 kg/ha, but these small parks (< 10 km2) are likely to underestimate pre-human influence values due to edge effects and the rarity of taxa with large area requirement, such as apex predators, including sharks.

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Abstract. Species-specific responses to disturbance are a central consideration for predicting the composition, dynamics, and function of future communities. These responses may be predictable based on species traits that can be analyzed systematically to understand those characteristics important in determining susceptibility and potential for recovery. Scleractinian coral communities of the Western Atlantic are experiencing increased frequency and severity of extreme thermal disturbance, coral bleaching, and mortality. A conceptual thermal bleaching response model developed in this study suggests multiple susceptibility pathways that can lead corals to partial mortality and the loss of biomass, or complete mortality and the loss of genotypes, with implications for species-specific persistence and recovery. Coral assessments from annual to semi-annual surveys at 18 sites in the U.S. Virgin Islands, northeastern Caribbean Sea, before, during, and after the catastrophic 2005 coral bleaching event and during the mild 2010 bleaching event were used to evaluate bleaching, disease, and mortality responses. Three convergent groupings of species emerged based predominantly on their responses to the 2005 event: Type I-high bleaching and initial mortality, no subsequent white disease, and severe losses of cover (exhibited by Agaricia agaricites and branching Porites species); Type II-moderate bleaching and initial mortality, high subsequent white disease prevalence, and severe losses of cover (exhibited by Colpophyllia natans, Montastraea annularis species complex, and M. annularis sensu stricto); Type III-moderate to low bleaching and paling, low to no subsequent white disease, and low to no loss of cover (exhibited by Diploria strigosa, Montastraea cavernosa, Porites astreoides, and Siderastrea siderea). Whole colony mortality was uncommon, even in the most susceptible species, suggesting a potential for recovery among the majority (19 of 27) of scleractinian corals studied. Type II species performed worse than predicted by species traits because of their susceptibility to disease, a factor that needs to be incorporated more fully in models of thermal stress response. Responses of all species to the milder 2010 event were less severe, with limited bleaching and no detectible mortality. Future community composition of Caribbean coral reefs under seawater warming will likely be increasingly dominated by resistant Type III species.