Advancing marine conservation
Anticamara, J.A., Zeller D. & A.C.J. Vincent (2010). Spatial and temporal variation of abundance, biomass and diversity within marine reserves in the Philippines. Diversity and Distributions 16(4):529-536. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2010.00661.x … Read more
Yasué, M., Kaufman L. & A.C.J. Vincent (2010). Assessing ecological changes in and around marine reserves using community perceptions and biological surveys. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 20(4):407-418. https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.1090 … Read more
The results of underwater visual fish censuses (UVC) could be affected by fish changing their behavior in response to the snorkeler or diver conducting the survey. We used an underwater video camera to assess how fish abundance, family richness, and community composition were affected by the presence of snorkelers (n = 12) and self-contained underwater breathing apparatus …
Shared expectations about marine protected areas (MPAs) might be expected to enhance their effectiveness. This study determined whether members of local communities had common or divergent views about the objectives and indicators of MPA effectiveness. In the central Philippines we used unconstrained and constrained methods to interview people in five stakeholder groups (elders, fishers, leaders, …
Despite an expansion of marine protected areas (MPAs), a big gap exists in monitoring and evaluating their effectiveness. In less developed countries such as the Philippines, community-based (CB) MPAs have flourished. This thesis focused on exploring how local communities identify indicators of MPA effectiveness and subsequently monitor and evaluate an MPA. I first examined the …
Systematic planning for conservation is highly regarded but relies on spatially explicit data that are lacking in many areas of conservation concern. The decision support tool Marxan is applied to a reef system in the central Philippines where 30 marine protected areas (MPAs) have been established in communities without much use of biophysical data. The …
We compared and integrated marine protected areas proposed through community and scientific assessments in 2 regions of British Columbia, Canada. The community priorities were identified during individual and group interviews with knowledgeable resource users. The scientific priorities were developed with abiotic and biotic data in Marxan, a decision-support tool. The resulting maps of community-based and …
Background: Marine populations have been declining at a worrying rate, due in large part to fishing pressures. The challenge is to secure a future for marine life while minimizing impacts on fishers and fishing communities. Methods and Principal Findings: Rather than selecting areas where fishing is banned – as is usually the case with spatial …
Marine protected areas (MPAs) can be an effective tool for marine biodiversity conservation, yet decision-makers usually have limited and biased datasets with which to make decisions about where to locate MPAs. Using commonly available abiotic and biotic datasets, I asked how many datasets are necessary to achieve robust patterns of conservation importance. I applied a …
No-take marine reserves are a highly advocated tool to recover degraded marine ecosystems, but we have limited evidence as to how marine reserves facilitate recovery of marine communities. To address this limitation, we conducted monthly underwater visual censuses over three years on 423 reef fish species in eight sites where fishing had been excluded for …