Ecologists have paid increasing attention to the design of marine protected areas (MPAs), and their design advice consistently recommends representing all habitat types within MPAs or MPA networks as a means to provide protection to all parts of the natural ocean system. Recent developments of new habitatmapping techniques make this advice more achievable, but the success of such an approach depends largely on our ability to define habitat types in a way that is ecologically relevant. We devised and tested the ecological relevance of a set of habitat-type definitions through our participation in a stakeholder-driven process to design a network of MPAs, focusing on no-take marine reserves in the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, San Andrés Archipelago, Colombia. A priori definitions of habitat types were ecologically relevant, in that our habitat-type definitions corresponded to identifiable and unique characteristics in the ecological communities found there. The identification of ecological pathways and connectivity among habitats also helped in designing ecologically relevant reserve boundaries. Our findings contributed to the overall design process, along with our summary of other general principles of marine reserve design. Extensive stakeholder input provided information concerning the resources and their patterns of use. These inputs also contributed to the reserve design process. We anticipate success for the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve at achieving conservation and social goals because its zoning process includes detailed yet flexible scientific advice and the participation of stakeholders at every step.Diseño deÁreas Marinas Protegidas Efectivas en la Reserva de la Biosfera Seaflower, Colombia, en Base a Información Biológica y Sociológica Resumen: Los ecólogos han puesto mayor atención en el diseño deáreas marinas protegidas (AMP), y sus sugerencias de diseño recomiendan consistentemente la representación de todos los tipos de hábitat en los AMP o en las redes de AMP como una forma de proporcionar protección a todas las partes del sistema oceánico natural. Desarrollos recientes de técnicas de mapeo de hábitat nuevas hacen que estas recomendaciones sean

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