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Management strategy evaluation applied to coral reef ecosystems in support of ecosystem-based management
Citation
Weijerman, M and Fulton, EA and Brainard, RE, Management strategy evaluation applied to coral reef ecosystems in support of ecosystem-based management, PLoS ONE, 11, (3) Article e0152577. ISSN 1932-6203 (2016) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
DOI: doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0152577
Abstract
Ecosystem modelling is increasingly used to explore ecosystem-level effects of changing environmental conditions and management actions. For coral reefs there has been increasing interest in recent decades in the use of ecosystem models for evaluating the effects of fishing and the efficacy of marine protected areas. However, ecosystem models that integrate physical forcings, biogeochemical and ecological dynamics, and human induced perturbations are still underdeveloped. We applied an ecosystem model (Atlantis) to the coral reef ecosystem of Guam using a suite of management scenarios prioritized in consultation with local resource managers to review the effects of each scenario on performance measures related to the ecosystem, the reef-fish fishery (e.g., fish landings) and coral habitat. Comparing tradeoffs across the selected scenarios showed that each scenario performed best for at least one of the selected performance indicators. The integrated ‘full regulation’ scenario outperformed other scenarios with four out of the six performance metrics at the cost of reef-fish landings. This model application quantifies the socio-ecological costs and benefits of alternative management scenarios. When the effects of climate change were taken into account, several scenarios performed equally well, but none prevented a collapse in coral biomass over the next few decades assuming a business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions scenario.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | coral reef, ecosystem management |
| Research Division: | Environmental Sciences |
| Research Group: | Ecological applications |
| Research Field: | Ecosystem function |
| Objective Division: | Expanding Knowledge |
| Objective Group: | Expanding knowledge |
| Objective Field: | Expanding knowledge in the environmental sciences |
| UTAS Author: | Fulton, EA (Dr Elizabeth Fulton) |
| ID Code: | 116829 |
| Year Published: | 2016 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 25 |
| Deposited By: | Ecology and Biodiversity |
| Deposited On: | 2017-05-23 |
| Last Modified: | 2018-04-20 |
| Downloads: | 120 View Download Statistics |
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