Marine ecosystem management has traditionally been divided between fisheries management and biodiversity conservation approaches, and the merging of these disparate agendas has proven difficult. Here, we offer a pathway that can unite fishers, scientists, resource managers and conservationists towards a single vision for some areas of the ocean where small investments in management can offer disproportionately large benefits to fisheries and biodiversity conservation. Specifically, we provide a series of evidenced‐based arguments that support an urgent need to recognize fish spawning aggregations (FSAs) as a focal point for fisheries management and conservation on a global scale, with a particular emphasis placed on the protection of multispecies FSA sites. We illustrate that these sites serve as productivity hotspots – small areas of the ocean that are dictated by the interactions between physical forces and geomorphology, attract multiple species to reproduce in large numbers and support food web dynamics, ecosystem health and robust fisheries. FSAs are comparable in vulnerability, importance and magnificence to breeding aggregations of seabirds, sea turtles and whales yet they receive insufficient attention and are declining worldwide. Numerous case‐studies confirm that protected aggregations do recover to benefit fisheries through increases in fish biomass, catch rates and larval recruitment at fished sites. The small size and spatio‐temporal predictability of FSAs allow monitoring, assessment and enforcement to be scaled down while benefits of protection scale up to entire populations. Fishers intuitively understand the linkages between protecting FSAs and healthy fisheries and thus tend to support their protection.

Managed reef fish in the Atlantic Ocean of the southeastern United States (SEUS) support a multi-billion dollar industry. There is a broad interest in locating and protecting spawning fish from harvest, to enhance productivity and reduce the potential for overfishing. We assessed spatiotemporal cues for spawning for six species from four reef fish families, using data on individual spawning condition collected by over three decades of regional fishery-independent reef fish surveys, combined with a series of predictors derived from bathymetric features. We quantified the size of spawning areas used by reef fish across many years and identified several multispecies spawning locations. We quantitatively identified cues for peak spawning and generated predictive maps for Gray Triggerfish (Balistes capriscus), White Grunt (Haemulon plumierii), Red Snapper (Lutjanus campechanus), Vermilion Snapper (Rhomboplites aurorubens), Black Sea Bass (Centropristis striata), and Scamp (Mycteroperca phenax). For example, Red Snapper peak spawning was predicted in 24.7–29.0°C water prior to the new moon at locations with high curvature in the 24–30 m depth range off northeast Florida during June and July. External validation using scientific and fishery-dependent data collections strongly supported the predictive utility of our models. We identified locations where reconfiguration or expansion of existing marine protected areas would protect spawning reef fish. We recommend increased sampling off southern Florida (south of 27° N), during winter months, and in high-relief, high current habitats to improve our understanding of timing and location of reef fish spawning off the southeastern United States.

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Large, commercially important coral reef fishes such as Nassau grouper Epinephelus striatus are known to spawn at specific places and times in a so-called transient fish spawning aggregation (FSA). Traditional E. striatus spawning sites also serve as multi-species FSA sites. Many sites have been extirpated by overfishing or have shown dramatic declines. The objectives of this paper are to: (1) characterize the sea bottom geomorphology of all known transient FSA sites in Belize; (2) provide an evaluation of the multi-species aspects of known FSA sites; and (3) evaluate a prediction of 2 potential FSA sites based on the relationship between seafloor characteristics and fish aggregations. The reef structures surrounding FSA sites were defined in relation to their depth and proximity to shelf edges, deep water, reef channels, and reef promontory tips. All (n = 14) transient FSAs occurred at convex-shaped reef structures jutting out over steep walls into deep water. All FSA sites were located <100 m from shelf edges and < 200 m from reef promontory tips, and at a mean of 78 ± 62 m from 100 m depth. Geomorphologically distinctive features at known FSAs allowed us to identify 2 new multi-species FSA sites exhibiting similar characteristics. All the primary FSA sites in Belize are reef promontories, but the reasons why fish aggregate at these sites remain unclear.