Marine reserves contribute half of the larval supply to a coral reef fishery

2025/02/05 by Michael Bode, Séverine Choukroun, Michael J. Emslie +6 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Coral and Marine Ecosystems Studies #Marine and fisheries research #Marine and coastal plant biology

paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/sciadv.adt0216

Abstract

Marine reserves deliver impressive increases in the abundance and size of exploited species on protected reefs, but larval dispersal makes it difficult to estimate their wider benefits. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR) contains an extensive network of marine reserves. By combining GBR-wide fish surveys, larval dispersal models, and commercial fishery catch data, we calculate the system-wide ecological and economic contributions of these reserves for coral groupers ( Plectropomus spp.), the region’s most important line fishery. Despite covering only 30% of reef habitat, the GBR’s marine reserve network contains half of the species’ biomass and generates most of its reproductive output (55%), half of the system’s larval settlement (50%), and almost half of the total fishery yield (47%).

Cited by

• Quality of marine protected areas is critical to achieving global biodiversity targets

Discussions

• Marine reserves contribute half of the larval supply to a coral reef fishery doi.org/10.1126/scia... [bsky, 24 points, 0 comments]

Related

• Protection efforts have resulted in ~10% of existing fish biomass on coral reefs
• Variation in fish assemblages across coral nurseries stocked for reef restoration on the Great Barrier Reef
• Habitat and local factors influence fish biomass recovery in marine protected areas
• Protection of coral reef fish delivers ecosystem-critical biocontrol of coral-eating starfish across the Great Barrier Reef
• Climate Change Affects Multiple Coral Reef Fisheries Ecosystem Services