Meeting fisheries, ecosystem function, and biodiversity goals in a human-dominated world
A complex landscape for reef management
Coral reefs are among the most biodiverse systems in the ocean, and they provide both food and ecological services. They are also highly threatened by climate change and human pressure. Cinner et al. looked at how best to maximize three key components of reef use and health: fish biomass, parrotfish grazing, and fish trait diversity. They found that when human pressure is low, all three traits can be maximized at high conservation levels. However, as human use and pressure increase, it becomes increasingly difficult to promote biodiversity conservation. At some levels of human impact, even the highest amount of protection is not able to maximize biodiversity conservation.
Science, this issue p. 307
Abstract
The worldwide decline of coral reefs necessitates targeting management solutions that can sustain reefs and the livelihoods of the people who depend on them. However, little is known about the context in which different reef management tools can help to achieve multiple social and ecological goals. Because of nonlinearities in the likelihood of achieving combined fisheries, ecological function, and biodiversity goals along a gradient of human pressure, relatively small changes in the context in which management is implemented could have substantial impacts on whether these goals are likely to be met. Critically, management can provide substantial conservation benefits to most reefs for fisheries and ecological function, but not biodiversity goals, given their degraded state and the levels of human pressure they face.
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Supplementary Material
Summary
Materials and Methods
Tables S1 to S7
Figs. S1 to S4
Resources
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Published In
Science
Volume 368 • Issue 6488 • 17 April 2020
Pages: 307 - 311
History
Received: 13 May 2019
Accepted: 18 March 2020
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Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000288Royal Society: UF140691
http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000923Australian Research Council: CE140100020, FT160100047,
