title: Marine protected areas increase resilience among coral reef communities.
abstract: With marine biodiversity declining globally at accelerating rates, maximising the effectiveness of conservation has become a key goal for local, national and international regulators. Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been widely advocated for conserving and managing marine biodiversity yet, despite extensive research, their benefits for conserving non-target species and wider ecosystem functions remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate that MPAs can increase the resilience of coral reef communities to natural disturbances, including coral bleaching, coral diseases, Acanthaster planci outbreaks and storms. Using a 20-year time series from Australia's Great Barrier Reef, we show that within MPAs, (1) reef community composition was 21-38% more stable; (2) the magnitude of disturbance impacts was 30% lower and (3) subsequent recovery was 20% faster that in adjacent unprotected habitats. Our results demonstrate that MPAs can increase the resilience of marine communities to natural disturbance possibly through herbivory, trophic cascades and portfolio effects.
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB No. 3, Townsville MC, Townsville, Queensland, 4810, Australia.|The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, South Australia, 5005, Australia.
authors.forename: Camille
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mellin
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB No. 3, Townsville MC, Townsville, Queensland, 4810, Australia.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Aaron MacNeil
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB No. 3, Townsville MC, Townsville, Queensland, 4810, Australia.
authors.forename: Alistair J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Cheal
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB No. 3, Townsville MC, Townsville, Queensland, 4810, Australia.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Emslie
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB No. 3, Townsville MC, Townsville, Queensland, 4810, Australia.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Julian Caley
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D037421:Anthozoa / Q000502:physiology; D001315:Australia; D044822:Biodiversity; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D057894:Coral Reefs; D005399:Fishes; D016014:Linear Models; D008386:Marine Biology; D008954:Models, Biological; D011157:Population Dynamics
keywords: Acanthaster planci; Great Barrier Reef; benthos; biodiversity; bleaching; crown-of-thorns starfish; cyclone; disturbance; fish; marine reserves