Quantifying population-level conservation impacts for a perpetual conservation program on private land.

Area-based targets, such as percentages of regions protected, are popular metrics of success in the protection of nature. While easily quantified, these targets can be uninformative about the effectiveness of conservation interventions and should be complemented by program impact evaluations. However, most impact evaluations have examined the effect of protected areas on deforestation. Studies that have extended these evaluations to more dynamic systems or different outcomes are less common, largely due to data availability. In these cases, simulations might prove to be a valuable tool for gaining an understanding of the potential range of program effect sizes. Here, we employ simulations of wetland drainage to estimate the impact of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Small Wetlands Acquisition Program (SWAP) across a ten-year period in terms of wetland area, and breeding waterfowl and brood abundance in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana. Using our simulation results, we estimate a plausible range of program impact for the SWAP as an avoided loss of between 0.00% and 0.02% of the carrying capacity for broods and breeding waterfowl from 2008-2017. Despite the low programmatic impact that these results suggest, the perpetual nature of SWAP governance provides promising potential for a higher cumulative conservation impact in the long term if future wetland drainage occurs.

Linking small-scale fisheries co-management to U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.

Small-scale fisheries account for 90% of global fishers and 40% of the global catch. Effectively managing small-scale fisheries is, therefore, crucial to progressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Co-management and community-based fisheries management are widely considered the most appropriate forms of governance for many small-scale fisheries. We outlined relationships between small-scale fisheries co-management and attainment of the SDGs, including evidence for impacts and gaps in dominant logic. We identified 11 targets across five SDGs to which small-scale fisheries co-management (including community-based fisheries management) can contribute; the theory of change by which these contributions could be achieved; and the strength of evidence for progress toward SDG targets related to various co-management strategies. Our theory of change links the 11 SDG targets by qualifying that progress toward some targets is contingent on others being achieved first. We then reviewed 58 case studies of co-management impacts from the Pacific Islands--a region rich in local marine governance--to evaluate evidence of where, to what degree, and with how much certainty different co-management strategies conferred positive impacts to each SDG target. These strategies included access restrictions, permanent area closures, periodic closures, and gear and species restrictions. Although many studies provide evidence linking multiple co-management strategies to improvements in resource status (SDG 14.4), there was limited evidence of follow-on effects, such as improvements in catch (SDG 2.3, 2.4), livelihoods (SDG 1.2), consumption (SDG 2.1), and nutrition (SDG 2.2). Our findings suggest that leaps of logic and assumptions are prevalent in co-management planning and evaluation. Hence, when evaluating co-management impacts against the SDGs, consideration of ultimate goals is required, otherwise, there is a risk of shortfalls between aspirations and impact.

Las pequeñas pesquerías representan el 90% de los pescadores y el 40% de la pesca a nivel mundial. Por lo tanto, su manejo efectivo es crucial para el avance de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sustentable de las Naciones Unidas (ODS). Generalmente se considera a la coadministración y la administración comunitaria de las pesquerías como las maneras más apropiadas para gestionar las pequeñas pesquerías. Perfilamos las relaciones entre la coadministración de estas pesquerías y la obtención de los ODS, incluida la evidencia de impactos y vacíos en la lógica dominante. Identificamos once metas en cinco ODS a las cuales puede contribuir la coadministración de las pequeñas pesquerías (incluyendo la administración comunitaria de las pesquerías); la teoría de cambio mediante la cual pueden lograrse estas contribuciones; y la solidez de la evidencia relacionada con varias estrategias de coadministración para el progreso hacia las metas de los ODS. Nuestra teoría de cambio conecta a las once metas de los ODS al calificar que el progreso hacia algunas metas está supeditado a que primero se logren otras metas. Después revisamos 58 estudios de caso del impacto de la coadministración en las islas del Pacífico - una región rica en gestión marina local - para evaluar la evidencia de dónde, a cuál grado y con cuánta certeza las diferentes estrategias de coadministración otorgaron impactos positivos a cada meta de los ODS. Estas estrategias incluyen restricciones de acceso, cierres permanentes del área, cierres periódicos y restricciones de equipamiento y especies. Mientras que muchos estudios proporcionaron evidencia que conecta a varias estrategias de coadministración con mejoras en el estado de los recursos (ODS 14.4), hubo pruebas limitadas de los efectos de seguimiento, como mejoras en la captura (ODS 2.3, 2.4), la subsistencia (ODS 1.2), el consumo (ODS 2.1) y la nutrición (ODS 2.2). Nuestros descubrimientos sugieren que los saltos de lógica y de suposición prevalecen en la planeación y evaluación de la coadministración.

Strategies in scheduling marine protected area establishment in a network system.

Instantaneous implementation of systematic conservation plans at regional scales is rare. More typically, planned actions are applied incrementally over periods of years or decades. During protracted implementation, the character of the connected ecological system will change as a function of external anthropogenic pressures, local metapopulation processes, and environmental fluctuations. For heavily exploited systems, habitat quality will deteriorate as the plan is implemented, potentially influencing the schedule of protected area implementation necessary to achieve conservation objectives. Understanding the best strategy to adopt for applying management within a connected environment is desirable, especially given limited conservation resources. Here, we model the sequential application of no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) in the central Philippines within a metapopulation framework, using a range of network-based decision rules. The model was based on selecting 33 sites for protection from 101 possible sites over a 35-yr period. The graph-theoretic network criteria to select sites for protection included PageRank, maximum degree, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality, minimum degree, random, and historical events. We also included a dynamic strategy called colonization-extinction rate that was updated every year based on the changing capacity of each site to produce and absorb larvae. Each rule was evaluated in the context of achieving the maximum metapopulation mean lifetime at the conclusion of the implementation phase. MPAs were designated through the alteration of the extinction risk parameter. The highest ranked criteria were PageRank while the actual implementation from historical records ranked lowest. Our results indicate that protecting the sites ranked highest with regard to larval supply is likely to yield the highest benefit for fish abundance and fish metapopulation persistence. Model results highlighted the benefits of including network processes in conservation planning.

Beyond the model: expert knowledge improves predictions of species' fates under climate change.

The need to proactively manage landscapes and species to aid their adaptation to climate change is widely acknowledged. Current approaches to prioritizing investment in species conservation generally rely on correlative models, which predict the likely fate of species under different climate change scenarios. Yet, while model statistics can be improved by refining modeling techniques, gaps remain in understanding the relationship between model performance and ecological reality. To investigate this, we compared standard correlative species distribution models to highly accurate, fine-scale, distribution models. We critically assessed the ecological realism of each species' model, using expert knowledge of the geography and habitat in the study area and the biology of the study species. Using interactive software and an iterative vetting with experts, we identified seven general principles that explain why the distribution modeling under- or overestimated habitat suitability, under both current and predicted future climates. Importantly, we found that, while temperature estimates can be dramatically improved through better climate downscaling, many models still inaccurately reflected moisture availability. Furthermore, the correlative models did not account for biotic factors, such as disease or competitor species, and were unable to account for the likely presence of micro refugia. Under-performing current models resulted in widely divergent future projections of species' distributions. Expert vetting identified regions that were likely to contain micro refugia, even where the fine-scale future projections of species distributions predicted population losses. Based on the results, we identify four priority conservation actions required for more effective climate change adaptation responses. This approach to improving the ecological realism of correlative models to understand climate change impacts on species can be applied broadly to improve the evidence base underpinning management responses.

Designing connected marine reserves in the face of global warming.

Marine reserves are widely used to protect species important for conservation and fisheries and to help maintain ecological processes that sustain their populations, including recruitment and dispersal. Achieving these goals requires well-connected networks of marine reserves that maximize larval connectivity, thus allowing exchanges between populations and recolonization after local disturbances. However, global warming can disrupt connectivity by shortening potential dispersal pathways through changes in larval physiology. These changes can compromise the performance of marine reserve networks, thus requiring adjusting their design to account for ocean warming. To date, empirical approaches to marine prioritization have not considered larval connectivity as affected by global warming. Here, we develop a framework for designing marine reserve networks that integrates graph theory and changes in larval connectivity due to potential reductions in planktonic larval duration (PLD) associated with ocean warming, given current socioeconomic constraints. Using the Gulf of California as case study, we assess the benefits and costs of adjusting networks to account for connectivity, with and without ocean warming. We compare reserve networks designed to achieve representation of species and ecosystems with networks designed to also maximize connectivity under current and future ocean-warming scenarios. Our results indicate that current larval connectivity could be reduced significantly under ocean warming because of shortened PLDs. Given the potential changes in connectivity, we show that our graph-theoretical approach based on centrality (eigenvector and distance-weighted fragmentation) of habitat patches can help design better-connected marine reserve networks for the future with equivalent costs. We found that maintaining dispersal connectivity incidentally through representation-only reserve design is unlikely, particularly in regions with strong asymmetric patterns of dispersal connectivity. Our results support previous studies suggesting that, given potential reductions in PLD due to ocean warming, future marine reserve networks would require more and/or larger reserves in closer proximity to maintain larval connectivity.

Avoiding Implementation Failure in Catchment Landscapes: A Case Study in Governance of the Great Barrier Reef.

Water quality outcomes affecting Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR) are governed by multi-level and multi-party decision-making that influences forested and agricultural landscapes. With international concern about the GBR's declining ecological health, this paper identifies and focuses on implementation failure (primarily at catchment scale) as a systemic risk within the overall GBR governance system. There has been limited integrated analysis of the full suite of governance subdomains that often envelop defined policies, programs and delivery activities that influence water quality in the GBR. We consider how the implementation of separate purpose-specific policies and programs at catchment scale operate against well-known, robust design concepts for integrated catchment governance. We find design concerns within ten important governance subdomains that operate within GBR catchments. At a whole-of-GBR scale, we find a weak policy focus on strengthening these delivery-oriented subdomains and on effort integration across these subdomains within catchments. These governance problems when combined may contribute to failure in the implementation of major national, state and local government policies focused on improving water quality in the GBR, a lesson relevant to landscapes globally.

Conservation hotspots for marine turtle nesting in the United States based on coastal development.

Coastal areas provide nesting habitat for marine turtles that is critical for the persistence of their populations. However, many coastal areas are highly affected by coastal development, which affects the reproductive success of marine turtles. Knowing the extent to which nesting areas are exposed to these threats is essential to guide management initiatives. This information is particularly important for coastal areas with both high nesting density and dense human development, a combination that is common in the United States. We assessed the extent to which nesting areas of the loggerhead (Caretta caretta), the green (Chelonia mydas), the Kemp's ridley (Lepidochelys kempii), and leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) in the continental United States are exposed to coastal development and identified conservation hotspots that currently have high reproductive importance and either face high exposure to coastal development (needing intervention), or have low exposure to coastal development, and are good candidates for continued and future protection. Night-time light, housing, and population density were used as proxies for coastal development and human disturbance. About 81.6% of nesting areas were exposed to housing and human population, and 97.8% were exposed to light pollution. Further, most (>65%) of the very high- and high-density nesting areas for each species/subpopulation, except for the Kemp's ridley, were exposed to coastal development. Forty-nine nesting sites were selected as conservation hotspots; of those high-density nesting sites, 49% were sites with no/low exposure to coastal development and the other 51% were exposed to high-density coastal development. Conservation strategies need to account for ~66.8% of all marine turtle nesting areas being on private land and for nesting sites being exposed to large numbers of seasonal residents.

Extinction debt from climate change for frogs in the wet tropics.

The effect of twenty-first-century climate change on biodiversity is commonly forecast based on modelled shifts in species ranges, linked to habitat suitability. These projections have been coupled with species-area relationships (SAR) to infer extinction rates indirectly as a result of the loss of climatically suitable areas and associated habitat. This approach does not model population dynamics explicitly, and so accepts that extinctions might occur after substantial (but unknown) delays-an extinction debt. Here we explicitly couple bioclimatic envelope models of climate and habitat suitability with generic life-history models for 24 species of frogs found in the Australian Wet Tropics (AWT). We show that (i) as many as four species of frogs face imminent extinction by 2080, due primarily to climate change; (ii) three frogs face delayed extinctions; and (iii) this extinction debt will take at least a century to be realized in full. Furthermore, we find congruence between forecast rates of extinction using SARs, and demographic models with an extinction lag of 120 years. We conclude that SAR approaches can provide useful advice to conservation on climate change impacts, provided there is a good understanding of the time lags over which delayed extinctions are likely to occur.

Factors influencing incidental representation of previously unknown conservation features in marine protected areas.

Spatially explicit information on species distributions for conservation planning is invariably incomplete; therefore, the use of surrogates is required to represent broad-scale patterns of biodiversity. Despite significant interest in the effectiveness of surrogates for predicting spatial distributions of biodiversity, few researchers have explored questions involving the ability of surrogates to incidentally represent unknown features of conservation interest. We used the Great Barrier Reef marine reserve network to examine factors affecting incidental representation of conservation features that were unknown at the time the reserve network was established. We used spatially explicit information on the distribution of 39 seabed habitats and biological assemblages and the conservation planning software Marxan to examine how incidental representation was affected by the spatial characteristics of the features; the conservation objectives (the minimum proportion of each feature included in no-take areas); the spatial configuration of no-take areas; and the opportunity cost of conservation. Cost was closely and inversely correlated to incidental representation. However, incidental representation was achieved, even in a region with only coarse-scale environmental data, by adopting a precautionary approach that explicitly considered the potential for unknown features. Our results indicate that incidental representation is enhanced by partitioning selection units along biophysical gradients to account for unknown within-feature variability and ensuring that no-take areas are well distributed throughout the region; by setting high conservation objectives that (in this case >33%) maximize the chances of capturing unknown features incidentally; and by carefully considering the designation of cost to planning units when using decision-support tools for reserve design. The lessons learned from incidental representation in the Great Barrier Reef have implications for conservation planning in other regions, particularly those that lack detailed environmental and ecological data.

Risk analysis of the governance system affecting outcomes in the Great Barrier Reef.

The state and trend of the Great Barrier Reef's (GBR's) ecological health remains problematic, influencing United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) statements regarding GBR governance. While UNESCO's concerns triggered separate strategic assessments by the Australian and Queensland governments, there has been no independent and integrated review of the key risks within the overall system of governance influencing GBR outcomes. As a case study of international significance, this paper applies Governance Systems Analysis (GSA), a novel analytical framework that identifies the governance themes, domains and subdomains most likely to influence environmental and socio-economic outcomes in complex natural systems. This GBR-focussed application of GSA identifies governance subdomains that present high, medium, or low risk of failure to produce positive outcomes for the Reef. This enabled us to determine that three "whole of system" governance problems could undermine GBR outcomes. First, we stress the integrative importance of the Long Term Sustainability Plan (LTSP) Subdomain. Sponsored by the Australian and Queensland governments, this subdomain concerns the primary institutional arrangements for coordinated GBR planning and delivery, but due to its recent emergence, it faces several internal governance challenges. Second, we find a major risk of implementation failure in the achievement of GBR water quality actions due to a lack of system-wide focus on building strong and stable delivery systems at catchment scale. Finally, we conclude that the LTSP Subdomain currently has too limited a mandate/capacity to influence several high-risk subdomains that have not been, but must be more strongly aligned with Reef management (e.g. the Greenhouse Gas Emission Management Subdomain). Our analysis enables exploration of governance system reforms needed to address environmental trends in the GBR and reflects on the potential application of GSA in other complex land and sea-scapes across the globe.

Operationalizing resilience for adaptive coral reef management under global environmental change.

Cumulative pressures from global climate and ocean change combined with multiple regional and local-scale stressors pose fundamental challenges to coral reef managers worldwide. Understanding how cumulative stressors affect coral reef vulnerability is critical for successful reef conservation now and in the future. In this review, we present the case that strategically managing for increased ecological resilience (capacity for stress resistance and recovery) can reduce coral reef vulnerability (risk of net decline) up to a point. Specifically, we propose an operational framework for identifying effective management levers to enhance resilience and support management decisions that reduce reef vulnerability. Building on a system understanding of biological and ecological processes that drive resilience of coral reefs in different environmental and socio-economic settings, we present an Adaptive Resilience-Based management (ARBM) framework and suggest a set of guidelines for how and where resilience can be enhanced via management interventions. We argue that press-type stressors (pollution, sedimentation, overfishing, ocean warming and acidification) are key threats to coral reef resilience by affecting processes underpinning resistance and recovery, while pulse-type (acute) stressors (e.g. storms, bleaching events, crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks) increase the demand for resilience. We apply the framework to a set of example problems for Caribbean and Indo-Pacific reefs. A combined strategy of active risk reduction and resilience support is needed, informed by key management objectives, knowledge of reef ecosystem processes and consideration of environmental and social drivers. As climate change and ocean acidification erode the resilience and increase the vulnerability of coral reefs globally, successful adaptive management of coral reefs will become increasingly difficult. Given limited resources, on-the-ground solutions are likely to focus increasingly on actions that support resilience at finer spatial scales, and that are tightly linked to ecosystem goods and services.

Efficient and equitable design of marine protected areas in Fiji through inclusion of stakeholder-specific objectives in conservation planning.

The efficacy of protected areas varies, partly because socioeconomic factors are not sufficiently considered in planning and management. Although integrating socioeconomic factors into systematic conservation planning is increasingly advocated, research is needed to progress from recognition of these factors to incorporating them effectively in spatial prioritization of protected areas. We evaluated 2 key aspects of incorporating socioeconomic factors into spatial prioritization: treatment of socioeconomic factors as costs or objectives and treatment of stakeholders as a single group or multiple groups. Using as a case study the design of a system of no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) in Kubulau, Fiji, we assessed how these aspects affected the configuration of no-take MPAs in terms of trade-offs between biodiversity objectives, fisheries objectives, and equity in catch losses among fisher stakeholder groups. The achievement of fisheries objectives and equity tended to trade-off concavely with increasing biodiversity objectives, indicating that it is possible to achieve low to mid-range biodiversity objectives with relatively small losses to fisheries and equity. Importantly, the extent of trade-offs depended on the method used to incorporate socioeconomic data and was least severe when objectives were set for each fisher stakeholder group explicitly. We found that using different methods to incorporate socioeconomic factors that require similar data and expertise can result in plans with very different impacts on local stakeholders.

A review of selection-based tests of abiotic surrogates for species representation.

Because conservation planners typically lack data on where species occur, environmental surrogates--including geophysical settings and climate types--have been used to prioritize sites within a planning area. We reviewed 622 evaluations of the effectiveness of abiotic surrogates in representing species in 19 study areas. Sites selected using abiotic surrogates represented more species than an equal number of randomly selected sites in 43% of tests (55% for plants) and on average improved on random selection of sites by about 8% (21% for plants). Environmental diversity (ED) (42% median improvement on random selection) and biotically informed clusters showed promising results and merit additional testing. We suggest 4 ways to improve performance of abiotic surrogates. First, analysts should consider a broad spectrum of candidate variables to define surrogates, including rarely used variables related to geographic separation, distance from coast, hydrology, and within-site abiotic diversity. Second, abiotic surrogates should be defined at fine thematic resolution. Third, sites (the landscape units prioritized within a planning area) should be small enough to ensure that surrogates reflect species' environments and to produce prioritizations that match the spatial resolution of conservation decisions. Fourth, if species inventories are available for some planning units, planners should define surrogates based on the abiotic variables that most influence species turnover in the planning area. Although species inventories increase the cost of using abiotic surrogates, a modest number of inventories could provide the data needed to select variables and evaluate surrogates. Additional tests of nonclimate abiotic surrogates are needed to evaluate the utility of conserving nature's stage as a strategy for conservation planning in the face of climate change.

Incorporating geodiversity into conservation decisions.

In a rapidly changing climate, conservation practitioners could better use geodiversity in a broad range of conservation decisions. We explored selected avenues through which this integration might improve decision making and organized them within the adaptive management cycle of assessment, planning, implementation, and monitoring. Geodiversity is seldom referenced in predominant environmental law and policy. With most natural resource agencies mandated to conserve certain categories of species, agency personnel are challenged to find ways to practically implement new directives aimed at coping with climate change while retaining their species-centered mandate. Ecoregions and ecological classifications provide clear mechanisms to consider geodiversity in plans or decisions, the inclusion of which will help foster the resilience of conservation to climate change. Methods for biodiversity assessment, such as gap analysis, climate change vulnerability analysis, and ecological process modeling, can readily accommodate inclusion of a geophysical component. We adapted others' approaches for characterizing landscapes along a continuum of climate change vulnerability for the biota they support from resistant, to resilient, to susceptible, and to sensitive and then summarized options for integrating geodiversity into planning in each landscape type. In landscapes that are relatively resistant to climate change, options exist to fully represent geodiversity while ensuring that dynamic ecological processes can change over time. In more susceptible landscapes, strategies aiming to maintain or restore ecosystem resilience and connectivity are paramount. Implementing actions on the ground requires understanding of geophysical constraints on species and an increasingly nimble approach to establishing management and restoration goals. Because decisions that are implemented today will be revisited and amended into the future, increasingly sophisticated forms of monitoring and adaptation will be required to ensure that conservation efforts fully consider the value of geodiversity for supporting biodiversity in the face of a changing climate.

The theory behind, and the challenges of, conserving nature's stage in a time of rapid change.

Most conservation planning to date has focused on protecting today's biodiversity with the assumption that it will be tomorrow's biodiversity. However, modern climate change has already resulted in distributional shifts of some species and is projected to result in many more shifts in the coming decades. As species redistribute and biotic communities reorganize, conservation plans based on current patterns of biodiversity may fail to adequately protect species in the future. One approach for addressing this issue is to focus on conserving a range of abiotic conditions in the conservation-planning process. By doing so, it may be possible to conserve an abiotically diverse "stage" upon which evolution will play out and support many actors (biodiversity). We reviewed the fundamental underpinnings of the concept of conserving the abiotic stage, starting with the early observations of von Humboldt, who mapped the concordance of abiotic conditions and vegetation, and progressing to the concept of the ecological niche. We discuss challenges posed by issues of spatial and temporal scale, the role of biotic drivers of species distributions, and latitudinal and topographic variation in relationships between climate and landform. For example, abiotic conditions are not static, but change through time-albeit at different and often relatively slow rates. In some places, biotic interactions play a substantial role in structuring patterns of biodiversity, meaning that patterns of biodiversity may be less tightly linked to the abiotic stage. Furthermore, abiotic drivers of biodiversity can change with latitude and topographic position, meaning that the abiotic stage may need to be defined differently in different places. We conclude that protecting a diversity of abiotic conditions will likely best conserve biodiversity into the future in places where abiotic drivers of species distributions are strong relative to biotic drivers, where the diversity of abiotic settings will be conserved through time, and where connectivity allows for movement among areas providing different abiotic conditions.

Modeling catchment nutrients and sediment loads to inform regional management of water quality in coastal-marine ecosystems: a comparison of two approaches.

Human-induced changes in flows of water, nutrients, and sediments have impacts on marine ecosystems. Quantifying these changes to systematically allocate management actions is a priority for many areas worldwide. Modeling nutrient and sediment loads and contributions from subcatchments can inform prioritization of management interventions to mitigate the impacts of land-based pollution on marine ecosystems. Among the catchment models appropriate for large-scale applications, N-SPECT and SedNet have been used to prioritize areas for management of water quality in coastal-marine ecosystems. However, an assessment of their relative performance, parameterization, and utility for regional-scale planning is needed. We examined how these considerations can influence the choice between the two models and the areas identified as priorities for management actions. We assessed their application in selected catchments of the Gulf of California, where managing land-based threats to marine ecosystems is a priority. We found important differences in performance between models. SedNet consistently estimated spatial variations in runoff with higher accuracy than N-SPECT and modeled suspended sediment (TSS) loads mostly within the range of variation in observed loads. N-SPECT overestimated TSS loads by orders of magnitude when using the spatially-distributed sediment delivery ratio (SDR), but outperformed SedNet when using a calibrated SDR. Differences in subcatchments' contribution to pollutant loads were principally due to explicit representation of sediment sinks and particulate nutrients by SedNet. Improving the floodplain extent model, and constraining erosion estimates by local data including gully erosion in SedNet, would improve results of this model and help identify effective management responses. Differences between models in the patterns of modeled pollutant supply were modest, but significantly influenced the prioritization of subcatchments for management.

Adaptive management of the Great Barrier Reef: a globally significant demonstration of the benefits of networks of marine reserves.

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) provides a globally significant demonstration of the effectiveness of large-scale networks of marine reserves in contributing to integrated, adaptive management. Comprehensive review of available evidence shows major, rapid benefits of no-take areas for targeted fish and sharks, in both reef and nonreef habitats, with potential benefits for fisheries as well as biodiversity conservation. Large, mobile species like sharks benefit less than smaller, site-attached fish. Critically, reserves also appear to benefit overall ecosystem health and resilience: outbreaks of coral-eating, crown-of-thorns starfish appear less frequent on no-take reefs, which consequently have higher abundance of coral, the very foundation of reef ecosystems. Effective marine reserves require regular review of compliance: fish abundances in no-entry zones suggest that even no-take zones may be significantly depleted due to poaching. Spatial analyses comparing zoning with seabed biodiversity or dugong distributions illustrate significant benefits from application of best-practice conservation principles in data-poor situations. Increases in the marine reserve network in 2004 affected fishers, but preliminary economic analysis suggests considerable net benefits, in terms of protecting environmental and tourism values. Relative to the revenue generated by reef tourism, current expenditure on protection is minor. Recent implementation of an Outlook Report provides regular, formal review of environmental condition and management and links to policy responses, key aspects of adaptive management. Given the major threat posed by climate change, the expanded network of marine reserves provides a critical and cost-effective contribution to enhancing the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef.

A novel approach to model exposure of coastal-marine ecosystems to riverine flood plumes based on remote sensing techniques.

Increased loads of land-based pollutants are a major threat to coastal-marine ecosystems. Identifying the affected marine areas and the scale of influence on ecosystems is critical to assess the impacts of degraded water quality and to inform planning for catchment management and marine conservation. Studies using remotely-sensed data have contributed to our understanding of the occurrence and influence of river plumes, and to our ability to assess exposure of marine ecosystems to land-based pollutants. However, refinement of plume modeling techniques is required to improve risk assessments. We developed a novel, complementary, approach to model exposure of coastal-marine ecosystems to land-based pollutants. We used supervised classification of MODIS-Aqua true-color satellite imagery to map the extent of plumes and to qualitatively assess the dispersal of pollutants in plumes. We used the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), the world's largest coral reef system, to test our approach. We combined frequency of plume occurrence with spatially distributed loads (based on a cost-distance function) to create maps of exposure to suspended sediment and dissolved inorganic nitrogen. We then compared annual exposure maps (2007-2011) to assess inter-annual variability in the exposure of coral reefs and seagrass beds to these pollutants. We found this method useful to map plumes and qualitatively assess exposure to land-based pollutants. We observed inter-annual variation in exposure of ecosystems to pollutants in the GBR, stressing the need to incorporate a temporal component into plume exposure/risk models. Our study contributes to our understanding of plume spatial-temporal dynamics of the GBR and offers a method that can also be applied to monitor exposure of coastal-marine ecosystems to plumes and explore their ecological influences.

Conservation objectives and sea-surface temperature anomalies in the Great Barrier Reef.

Spatial and temporal dynamics of ecological processes have long been considered important in marine systems, but seldom have conservation objectives been set for them. Climate change makes the consideration of the dynamics of ecological processes in the design of marine protected areas critical. We analyzed sea-surface temperature (SST) trends and variability in Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) for 25 years and formulated and tested whether three sets of notional conservation objectives were met to illustrate the potential for planning to address climate change. Given mixed and limited evidence that no-take areas increase resilience to disturbances such as anomalously high temperatures (i.e., temperatures ≥1 °C above weekly mean temperature), our conservation objectives focused on areas less likely to be affected by such events at extents ranging from the entire Great Barrier Reef to the system of no-take zones and individual no-take zones. The objective sets were (1) at least 50% of temperature refugia (i.e., pixels that had high-temperature anomalies <5% or <7% of the time) within no-take zones, (2) maximum occurrence of high-temperature anomalies is <10%,< 20%, or <30% of total no-take area 90% of the time, and (3) coverage of any single no-take zone by high-temperature anomalies occurs <5% or <10% of the time. We used satellite imagery from 1985-2009 to measure SST to determine high-temperature anomalies. SSTs in the Great Barrier Reef increased significantly in some regions, and some of the conservation objectives were met by the park's current zoning plan. Dialogue between conservation scientists and managers is needed to develop appropriate conservation objectives under climate change and strategies to meet them.

Evaluating perceived benefits of ecoregional assessments.

The outcomes of systematic conservation planning (process of assessing, implementing, and managing conservation areas) are rarely reported or measured formally. A lack of consistent or rigorous evaluation in conservation planning has fueled debate about the extent to which conservation assessment (identification, design, and prioritization of potential conservation areas) ultimately influences actions on the ground. We interviewed staff members of a nongovernmental organization, who were involved in 5 ecoregional assessments across North and South America and the Asia-Pacific region. We conducted 17 semistructured interviews with open and closed questions about the perceived purpose, outputs, and outcomes of the ecoregional assessments in which respondents were involved. Using qualitative data collected from those interviews, we investigated the types and frequency of benefits perceived to have emerged from the ecoregional assessments and explored factors that might facilitate or constrain the flow of benefits. Some benefits reflected the intended purpose of ecoregional assessments. Other benefits included improvements in social interactions, attitudes, and institutional knowledge. Our results suggest the latter types of benefits enable ultimate benefits of assessments, such as guiding investments by institutional partners. Our results also showed a clear divergence between the respondents' expectations and perceived outcomes of implementation of conservation actions arising from ecoregional assessments. Our findings suggest the need for both a broader perspective on the contribution of assessments to planning goals and further evaluation of conservation assessments.