Coastal communities are exerting increasingly more pressure on coral reef ecosystem services in the Anthropocene. Balancing trade-offs between local economic demands, preservation of traditional values, and maintenance of both biodiversity and ecosystem resilience is a challenge for reef managers and resource users. Consistently, growing reef tourism sectors offer more lucrative livelihoods than subsistence and artisanal fisheries at the cost of traditional heritage loss and ecological damage. Using a systematic review of coral reef fishery reconstructions since the 1940s, we show that declining trends in fisheries catch and fish stocks dominate coral reef fisheries globally, due in part to overfishing of schooling and spawningaggregating fish stocks vulnerable to exploitation. Using a separate systematic review of coral reef tourism studies since 2013, we identify socio-ecological impacts and economic opportunities associated to the industry. Fisheries and tourism have the potential to threaten the ecological stability of coral reefs, resulting in phase shifts toward less productive coral-depleted ecosystem states. We consider whether four common management strategies (unmanaged commons, ecosystem-based management, co-management, and adaptive co-management) fulfil eco-logical conservation and socioeconomic goals, such as living wage, job security, and maintenance of cultural traditions. Strategies to enforce resource exclusion and withhold traditional resource rights risk social unrest; thus, the coexistence of fisheries and tourism industries is essential. The purpose of this chapter is to assist managers and scientists in their responsibility to devise implementable strategies that protect local community livelihoods and the coral reefs on which they rely.

Synchronized emergence of offspring may represent an adaptive strategy to reduce predation risk. This strategy swamps the short-term capacity of predators to consume prey before offspring disperse, inducing a dilution effect, thus improving an individual’s chance of survival. In the case of sea turtles, this occurs during emergence and mass migration to the sea, to avoid potential predators on the beach. In this study, we evaluated the effect of group size on predation rates of loggerhead turtle Caretta caretta hatchlings during the crawl to the sea on Boa Vista Island, Cabo Verde. Our results show that synchronous emergence reduced rates of predation by tufted ghost crabs Ocypode cursor. The mean estimated predation rate overall was 50.3%. Predation was highest (~75%) in the smallest group sizes and decreased to ~25% in larger groups, due to the lower probability of an individual being attacked by a ghost crab. Our observations also indicate significantly higher predation rates at night (55%) than during the day (22%). No relationship between predation rates and the distance between the nest and the surf zone of the sea was identified; however, this is likely due to the behaviour of ghost crabs, i.e. waiting close to the tide line for hatchlings during the night. Our results provide important information for the management and conservation of endangered sea turtle populations in areas with high densities of predatory ghost crabs. Specifically, to reduce predation rates, we recommend that hatchlings are released in large groups at twilight hours and in areas of low ghost crab densities.

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