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Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a key tool for achieving goals for biodiversity conservation and human well-being, including improving climate resilience and equitable access to nature. At a national level, they are central components in the U.S. commitment to conserve at least 30% of U.S. waters by 2030. By definition, the primary goal of an MPA is the long-term conservation of nature; however, not all MPAs provide the same ecological and social benefits. A U.S. system of MPAs that is equitable, well-managed, representative and connected, and includes areas at a level of protection that can deliver desired outcomes is best positioned to support national goals. We used a new MPA framework, The MPA Guide, to assess the level of protection and stage of establishment of the 50 largest U.S. MPAs, which make up 99.7% of the total U.S. MPA area (3.19 million km2). Over 96% of this area, including 99% of that which is fully or highly protected against extractive or destructive human activities, is in the central Pacific ocean. Total MPA area in other regions is sparse – only 1.9% of the U.S. ocean excluding the central Pacific is protected in any kind of MPA (120,976 km2). Over three quarters of the non-central Pacific MPA area is lightly or minimally protected against extractive or destructive human activities. These results highlight an urgent need to improve the quality, quantity, and representativeness of MPA protection in U.S. waters to bring benefits to human and marine communities. We identify and review the state of the science, including focal areas for achieving desired MPA outcomes and lessons learned from places where sound ecological and social design principles come together in MPAs that are set up to achieve national goals for equity, climate resilience, and biodiversity conservation. We recommend key opportunities for action specific to the U.S. context, including increasing funding, research, equity, and protection level for new and existing U.S. MPAs.
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Effectiveness and design of marine protected areas for migratory species of conservation concern: A case study of post-nesting hawksbill turtles in Brazil.
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are among the most widely used strategy to protect marine ecosystems and are typically designed to protect specific habitats rather than a single and/or multiple species. To inform the con- servation of species of conservation concern there is the need to assess whether existing and proposed MPA designs provide protection to these species. For this, information on species spatial distribution and exposure to threats is necessary. However, this information if often lacking, particularly for mobile migratory species, such as marine turtles. To highlight the importance of this information when designing MPAs and for assessments of their effectiveness, we identified high use areas of post-nesting hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) in Brazil as a case study and assessed the effectiveness of Brazilian MPAs to protect important habitat for this group based on exposure to threats. Most (88%) of high use areas were found to be exposed to threats (78% to artisanal fishery and 76.7% to marine traffic), where 88.1% were not protected by MPAs, for which 86% are exposed to threats. This mismatch is driven by a lack of explicit conservation goals and targets for turtles in MPA management plans, limited spatial information on species' distribution and threats, and a mismatch in the scale of conservation initiatives. To inform future assessments and design of MPAs for species of conservation concern we suggest that managers: clearly state and make their goals and targets tangible, consider ecological scales instead of political boundaries, and use adaptative management as new information become available.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1904818
- PAR ID:
- 10325853
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Biological conservation
- ISSN:
- 0006-3207
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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IntroductionAn understanding of animal behavior is critical to determine their ecological role and to inform conservation efforts. However, observing hidden behaviors can be challenging, especially for animals that spend most of their time underwater. Animal-borne devices are valuable tools to estimate hidden behavioral states. MethodsWe investigated the fine-scale behavior of internesting hawksbill turtles using the mixed-membership method for movement (M4) which integrated dive variables with spatial components and estimated latent behavioral states. ResultsFive latent behavioral states were identified: 1) pre-nesting, 2) transit, 3) quiescence, and 4) area restricted search within and 5) near the residence of turtles. The last three states associated with a residency period, showed lower activity levels. Notably, when compared to other behaviors the pre-nesting exhibited shallower and remarkably long dives of up to 292 minutes. We noted high fidelity to residence core areas and nesting beaches, within and between nesting seasons, with residence areas decreasing within a season. DiscussionThe latent behaviors identified provide the most detailed breakdown of turtle movement behaviors during the internesting period to date, providing valuable insights into their ecology and behavior. This information can inform marine turtle conservation and management efforts since utilization distributions of individual behavioral states can be used to determine spatially-explicit susceptibility of turtles to various threats based on their behavior. The analyses of utilization distribution revealed a minimal overlap with existing marine protected areas (0.4%), and we show how a new proposal would expand protection to 30%. In short, this study provides valuable guidance for conservation and management of internesting marine turtles at a fine spatiotemporal resolution and can be used to enhance national action plans for endangered species, including the expansion of existing Marine Protected Areas. By flexibly incorporating biologically informative parameters, this approach can be used to study behavior outside of the hawksbill breeding season or even beyond this species.more » « less
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Abstract Marine protected areas (MPAs) have gained attention as a conservation tool for enhancing ecosystem resilience to climate change. However, empirical evidence explicitly linking MPAs to enhanced ecological resilience is limited and mixed. To better understand whether MPAs can buffer climate impacts, we tested the resistance and recovery of marine communities to the 2014–2016 Northeast Pacific heatwave in the largest scientifically designed MPA network in the world off the coast of California, United States. The network consists of 124 MPAs (48 no‐take state marine reserves, and 76 partial‐take or special regulation conservation areas) implemented at different times, with full implementation completed in 2012. We compared fish, benthic invertebrate, and macroalgal community structure inside and outside of 13 no‐take MPAs across rocky intertidal, kelp forest, shallow reef, and deep reef nearshore habitats in California's Central Coast region from 2007 to 2020. We also explored whether MPA features, including age, size, depth, proportion rock, historic fishing pressure, habitat diversity and richness, connectivity, and fish biomass response ratios (proxy for ecological performance), conferred climate resilience for kelp forest and rocky intertidal habitats spanning 28 MPAs across the full network. Ecological communities dramatically shifted due to the marine heatwave across all four nearshore habitats, and MPAs did not facilitate habitat‐wide resistance or recovery. Only in protected rocky intertidal habitats did community structure significantly resist marine heatwave impacts. Community shifts were associated with a pronounced decline in the relative proportion of cold water species and an increase in warm water species. MPA features did not explain resistance or recovery to the marine heatwave. Collectively, our findings suggest that MPAs have limited ability to mitigate the impacts of marine heatwaves on community structure. Given that mechanisms of resilience to climate perturbations are complex, there is a clear need to expand assessments of ecosystem‐wide consequences resulting from acute climate‐driven perturbations, and the potential role of regulatory protection in mitigating community structure changes.more » « less
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Marine protected areas (MPAs) aim to protect habitats and ecosystems to promote the diversity and health of marine populations. To evaluate the health of fish populations within and outside of MPAs in Southern California, we used flight initiation distance (FID). FID is the distance at which an individual will flee from a perceived predator and is a direct measure of boldness. Lower FIDs are indicative of bolder populations. Lower FID values indicate that fish will have the opportunity to dedicate less energy to fleeing from predators which could then be used for increased foraging. Data was collected from eight locations along the Southern California coast, four in protected areas and four in non-protected areas. FIDs were measured with a sonar-based range finder. All fish species that recreational fishermen could catch were targeted, with a focus on six core species spearfishermen catch commonly. Results showed that all fish sampled in MPAs have significantly lower FIDs than those in non-protected areas. An ANOVA showed no significant difference between different locations of the same protected status. The six core species had lower average FIDs in protected areas, three species had significant differences between protected and non-protected populations, and there was no significant difference in FIDs between species. These results show that Southern California MPAs are promoting healthier fish communities with respect to boldness behavior. This data and methods can be implemented in future projects to expand the range of metrics measured to inform management tools for California’s MPAs and MPAs at large.more » « less
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Abstract The number of protected areas that restrict or prohibit harvest of wild populations is growing. In general, protected areas are expected to increase the abundance of previously‐harvested species. Whether a protected area achieves this expectation is typically evaluated by assessing trends in abundance after implementation. However, the underlying assumption that harvest has actually ceased is rarely tested directly. Determining whether illegal harvest (poaching) has continued in a protected area is important to planning enforcement and adaptive management. Here, we estimated harvest rates for four kelp forest fish species inside marine protected areas (MPAs) and non‐MPA reference sites in the California Channel Islands, from 2003 (when MPAs were implemented) to 2017. We estimated harvest by fitting a size‐structured population model to survey data. Overall, harvest rates were effectively zero in MPAs but much higher in non‐MPA sites. This indicates successful adherence to MPA regulations, and possible displacement of fishing effort to reference sites. However, some poaching was detected in two MPA sites, highlighting the importance of assessing this quantity. This modeling approach could provide a tool to complement the long‐term management of MPA networks, particularly given the difficulty of acquiring harvest rate data at the spatial scale of individual MPAs.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109229
