Climate change threatens the world’s marine protected areas

Bruno, John F.; Bates, Amanda E.; Cacciapaglia, Chris; Pike, Elizabeth P.; Amstrup, Steven C.; Hooidonk, Ruben van; Henson, Stephanie A.; Aronson, Richard B.

doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0149-2

Cited by 195 publications

(137 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…The CoSEGoL FRA was focused on demersal species [37], and our study showed that reducing fishing effort in the CoSEGoL FRA could benefit demersal species, in accordance to findings by other studies [18]. Regarding target species, biomass and catch-based indicators changed under different RCP scenarios in 2040, and thus climate change predictions under multiple scenarios should be considered for management purposes in the future [77].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Current and potential contributions of the Gulf of Lion Fisheries Restricted Area to fisheries sustainability in the NW Mediterranean Sea

Vilas

Coll

Corrales

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Many commercial species of the world are overexploited resulting in substantial reductions of biomass and ecological changes. Spatial-temporal restrictions of fishing activities are important measures used for the management of marine stocks. However, evidence of whether fishing bans benefit whole ecosystems is still scant. Here, we developed a food-web model approach using the Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) model representing the Fisheries Restricted Area (FRA) of the Gulf of Lion ecosystem (CoSEGoL model) prior to the establishment of the fisheries restrictions (2006-2008) to characterize the structure and functioning of the ecosystem before and after its establishment. The constructed food-web model was, then, fitted to available time series of data from 2008 to 2016 to verify whether this FRA has contributed to recovery of target demersal species and the demersal community. The fitted model was used to explore alternative future management scenarios to explore feasible management options in order to ensure a full ecosystem recovery under climate change conditions. Both small positive and negative ecosystem changes occurred between prior and after the establishment of the FRA, potentially revealing a lack of protection efficiency and/or enforcement. Scenarios of management options under plausible climate futures revealed possible recovery of targeted species, especially European hake. The study highlighted the importance of considering trophic interactions between predators and prey to identify trade-offs and synergies in fisheries management outcomes and the need to consider both fishing and climate dynamics.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Current and potential contributions of the Gulf of Lion Fisheries Restricted Area to fisheries sustainability in the NW Mediterranean Sea

Vilas

Coll

Corrales

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…Marine protected areas may play a greater role in mediating tropicalisation if scientists and managers begin to anticipate future change and manage beyond extant conditions to “future‐proof” the ecological systems and functions that we value (Bruno et al, ; Coleman et al, ). For example, there may be benefit in identifying potential thermal refugia (Ban, Alidina, Okey, Gregg, & Ban, ).…”

Section: Approaches To Managing Tropicalised Reefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropicalisation of temperate reefs: Implications for ecosystem functions and management actions

et al. 2019

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Temperate reefs from around the world are becoming tropicalised, as warm‐water species shift their distribution towards the poles in response to warming. This is already causing profound shifts in dominant foundation species and associated ecological communities as canopy seaweeds such as kelp are replaced by tropical species. Here, we argue that the cascading consequences of tropicalisation for the ecosystem properties and functions of warming temperate reefs depend largely on the taxa that end up dominating the seafloor. We put forward three potential tropicalisation trajectories, that differ in whether seaweeds, turf or corals become dominant. We highlight potential gains to certain ecosystem functions for some tropicalisation endpoints. For example, local benthic fish productivity may increase in some tropicalised reefs as a higher proportion of primary production is directly consumed, but this will be at the expense of other functions such as carbon export. We argue that understanding these changes in flows of energy and materials is essential to formulate new conservation strategies and management approaches that minimise risks as well as capture potential opportunities. Regardless of which trajectory is followed, tropicalised systems represent largely novel ecosystem configurations. This poses major challenges to traditional conservation and environmental management approaches, which typically focus on maintaining or returning species to particular locations. We outline management practices that may either mitigate predicted structural and functional changes or make the most of potential new opportunities in tropicalised reefs. These include marine protected areas to increase resilience and connectivity, the development of new fisheries that target range‐expanding invaders, and assisted evolution and migration strategies to facilitate the dominance of large habitat formers like corals or seaweeds. We highlight important ecological and ethical challenges associated with developing novel approaches to manage tropicalised reefs, which may need to become increasingly interventionist. As technological innovations continue to emerge, having clear goals and considering the ethics surrounding interventions among the broader community are essential steps to successfully develop novel management approaches. A plain language summary is available for this article.

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“…With this in mind, management efforts and investment could prioritize reefs with greater resilience, focusing on corals with inherently greater stress tolerance (or recovery potential) or operate as climate change refugia (e.g., Beyer et al, ; Osman et al, ). However, in doing so, management (re‐) prioritization must be careful that efforts to minimize exposure to one stressor does not increase exposure to another (see Bruno et al, ), returning us a central issue: how can MPA (re‐) planning be effectively achieved without understanding the complex environmental network that governs bleaching susceptibility? Realizing such a goal clearly rests on rapidly improving capacity to monitor reef environment condition, but also applying these data to more advanced network models that can track how changing reef environments (Figure ; see also, Ellis et al, in press) trigger alternate metabolic cascades and hence bleaching outcomes (Figure ; Baird et al, ; Kumagai, Yamano, & Committee Sango‐Map‐Project, ).…”

Section: Operationalizing Management In the Framework Of Bleaching‐dementioning

confidence: 99%

Coral bleaching patterns are the outcome of complex biological and environmental networking

Suggett

Smith

2019

Global Change Biology

122

108

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Continued declines in coral reef health over the past three decades have been punctuated by severe mass coral bleaching‐induced mortality events that have grown in intensity and frequency under climate change. Intensive global research efforts have therefore persistently focused on bleaching phenomena to understand where corals bleach, when and why—resulting in a large—yet still somewhat patchy—knowledge base. Particularly catastrophic bleaching‐induced coral mortality events in the past 5 years have catalyzed calls for a more diverse set of reef management tools, extending far beyond climate mitigation and reef protection, to also include more aggressive interventions. However, the effectiveness of these various tools now rests on rapidly assimilating our knowledge base of coral bleaching into more integrated frameworks. Here, we consider how the past three decades of intensive coral bleaching research has established the basis for complex biological and environmental networks, which together regulate outcomes of bleaching severity. We discuss how we now have enough scaffold for conceptual biological and environmental frameworks underpinning bleaching susceptibility, but that new tools are urgently required to translate this to an operational system informing—and testing—bleaching outcomes. Specifically, adopting network models that can fully describe and predict metabolic functioning of coral holobionts, and how this functioning is regulated by complex doses and interactions among environmental factors. Identifying knowledge gaps limiting operation of such models is the logical step to immediately guide and prioritize future experiments and observations. We are at a time‐critical point where we can implement new capacity to resolve how coral bleaching patterns emerge from complex biological–environmental networks, and so more effectively inform rapidly evolving ecological management and social adaptation frameworks aimed at securing the future of coral reefs.

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Climate change threatens the world’s marine protected areas

Cited by 195 publications

References 45 publications

Current and potential contributions of the Gulf of Lion Fisheries Restricted Area to fisheries sustainability in the NW Mediterranean Sea

Current and potential contributions of the Gulf of Lion Fisheries Restricted Area to fisheries sustainability in the NW Mediterranean Sea

Tropicalisation of temperate reefs: Implications for ecosystem functions and management actions

Coral bleaching patterns are the outcome of complex biological and environmental networking

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