Might marine protected areas for mobile megafauna suit their proponents more than the animals?

Wilson, Ben

doi:10.1002/aqc.2619

Cited by 27 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Harbour porpoises are widespread and highly mobile, and it is recognised that the relative importance of their marine habitats may be transient (Evans 2008, Wilson 2016) and that their distribution may vary over time (Hammond et al 2013). Our findings highlight some additional complexities of the patterns and drivers of fine-scale changes in harbour porpoise distribution over different habitats within UK waters.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Diurnal variation in harbour porpoise detection—potential implications for management

Williamson¹,

Brookes²,

Scott³

et al. 2017

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Robust information on animal distributions and foraging behaviour is required to target management and conservation measures for protected species and populations. Visual survey data are commonly used to model these distributions. However, because visual data can only be collected in daylight, modelled distributions and consequent management actions may fail to identify or protect important nocturnal habitats. We explored this issue using data from the Moray Firth, Scotland, where visual survey data have previously been used to characterise habitat use and distribution patterns of harbour porpoises Phocoena phocoena. Marine predators such as harbour porpoises have a widespread distribution, are highly mobile and are known to exhibit behavioural variation in relation to diel cycles. Here, we used long-term passive acoustic data which revealed habitat-specific differences in diel patterns of detection. Harbour porpoises were detected consistently during night and day in sandy areas, with peaks in detection around sunrise and sunset, and at night in muddy areas. Detections also varied with depth, with the greatest proportion of daytime detections recorded in shallower sandy areas, and the most nighttime detections recorded in deeper muddy areas. The proportion of detections with foraging buzzes increased slightly during the night and in muddy habitats. These findings suggest that the importance of muddy habitats could be underestimated when using visual survey data alone. This highlights the value of using a combination of visual and acoustic methods both to characterise species distribution and to support efforts to develop appropriate spatio-temporal management of key habitats.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Diurnal variation in harbour porpoise detection—potential implications for management

Williamson¹,

Brookes²,

Scott³

et al. 2017

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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“…Bermuda's loss of algal diversity would not be the first case where governmental marine protections did not effectively protect all species, or the environment in which they live, when trying to manage certain species or groups of organisms (Allison et al 1998, Heithaus et al 2014, Wilson 2016. It is therefore not surprising that Bermuda introduced the 1978 Fisheries (Protected Species) Order to keep the coral reefs healthy and free of the overgrowth of macroalgae, as these are environments that bring a high economic value to the tourist-based economy (Sarkis et al 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Could marine animal conservation laws be responsible for the decline or extirpation of macroalgal populations in Bermuda over the past century?

Schneider

Flook

2017

Botanica Marina

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Using over 10,000 archival herbarium specimens from Bermuda, we compared the presence or absence of seaweeds from a century ago with our more than 5000 collections from the last 30 years. Populations of parrotfish, important herbivores of macroalgae in the tropics, have increased since the 1993 amendment to the Bermuda 1978 Fisheries (Protected Species) Order. A fish pot ban for Bermuda was put into effect in 1990 to protect a variety of fish including parrotfish and several species of grouper, important predators of parrotfish that were rarely seen in island waters at the time. Intertidal grazing West Indian top shells were reintroduced in 1982 to Bermuda, and since then, along with the rise in parrotfish populations, inshore populations of many macroalgae have dramatically changed. We suggest that several large and abundant Bermuda macroalgal species recorded in the early 20th century appear to have been extirpated or are greatly diminished in sizes of individuals as well as population abundance, and propose that marine animal protections over the past 35 years are a possible reason for the changes we are presently observing.

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“…Wilson (2016) has discussed the limitations of area-based management for highly mobile, wide-ranging species such as cetaceans and questioned some of the reasons behind its implementation; that is, whether it is the right tool for these species. Wilson (2016) has discussed the limitations of area-based management for highly mobile, wide-ranging species such as cetaceans and questioned some of the reasons behind its implementation; that is, whether it is the right tool for these species.…”

Section: Predicted Presence Of Bottlenose Dolphinsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…MPAs are typically designed with fixed boundaries, which present a challenge for the targeted conservation of highly mobile species, for migratory populations, for offshore oceanic species with extensive ranges that may vary seasonally, and for more discrete populations that might still display wide-ranging movements (Reeves, 2000;Wilson, 2016). The biological information leading to the designation of an MPA may be limited, and thus an adaptive approach during the early phases of management to incorporate information on the use of the MPA by the population of interest, as it becomes available, is recommended (Silva et al, 2012;Williams, Lusseau, & Hammond, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing distribution of the east coast of Scotland bottlenose dolphin population and the challenges of area‐based management

Civil

Quick

Cheney

et al. 2019

Aquatic Conservation

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1. The efficacy of marine protected areas (MPAs) depends on clear conservation objectives and ecologically meaningful boundaries. The east coast of Scotland bottlenose dolphin population expanded its distributional range during the 1990s beyond the boundaries of the Moray Firth Special Area of Conservation (SAC), originally proposed to contain their core area of distribution. Two decades on, this study assesses the importance for this population of St Andrews Bay and the Tay estuary, 300 km south of the SAC. 2. Photoidentification data from 2009 to 2015 were analysed using mark-recapture models to investigate the proportion of the population that uses St Andrews Bay and the Tay estuary. Habitat models were fitted to bottlenose dolphin presenceabsence data to identify areas of high use. 3. The estimated number of dolphins using St Andrews Bay and the Tay estuary during the summer increased from 91 (95% confidence interval 78-106) in 2009 to 114 (95% confidence interval 95-137) in 2015, representing, on average, 52.5% of the total estimated east-coast population for that period. Spatial mixing of individuals during the summer between St Andrews Bay and the Tay estuary and the Moray Firth SAC was estimated to be a minimum of~6% per year and~30% over the study period. The entrance to the Firth of Tay and waters around Montrose were identified as areas of consistent high use. 4. The importance of St Andrews Bay and the Tay estuary reconfirms that effective monitoring of the population requires dedicated effort in both this area and the SAC. The results lead to consideration of the wider context of area-based management for the conservation/management of highly mobile wide-ranging species and human activities that might impact them.

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Might marine protected areas for mobile megafauna suit their proponents more than the animals?

Cited by 27 publications

References 29 publications

Diurnal variation in harbour porpoise detection—potential implications for management

Diurnal variation in harbour porpoise detection—potential implications for management

Could marine animal conservation laws be responsible for the decline or extirpation of macroalgal populations in Bermuda over the past century?

Changing distribution of the east coast of Scotland bottlenose dolphin population and the challenges of area‐based management

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