Responses of Herbivorous Fishes and Benthos to 6 Years of Protection at the Kahekili Herbivore Fisheries Management Area, Maui

Williams, Ivor D.; White, Darla; Sparks, Russell T.; Lino, Kevin; Zamzow, Jill P.; Kelly, Emily L. A.; Ramey, Hailey L.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0159100

Cited by 45 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Rarely are nominally herbivorous fishes afforded specific bans or catch limits, but they can be protected through spatially explicit fishery regulations (Williams et al. ). Such protection from fishing can, however, lead to increases in the abundance of predators, which may exert significant top‐down pressure on herbivorous fish populations (Friedlander and DeMartini , Houk and Musburger ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Herbivorous fish rise as a destructive fishing practice falls in an Indonesian marine national park

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Pardede

Campbell

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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Securing ecosystem functions is challenging, yet common priority in conservation efforts. While marine parks aim to meet this challenge by regulating fishing through zoning plans, their effectiveness hinges on compliance levels and may respond to changes in fishing practices. Here we use a speciose assemblage of nominally herbivorous reef fish in Karimunjawa National Park (zoned since 1989) to investigate whether areas subject to a restrictive management regime sustained higher biomass over seven years compared to areas where moderate and permissive regulations apply. Using a trait-based approach we characterize the functional space of the entire species pool and ask whether changes in biomass translate into changes in functional structure. We track changes in predator biomass, benthic community structure, and fishing practices that could influence herbivore trajectories. Overall herbivore biomass doubled in 2012 compared to 2006-2009 and remained high in 2013 across all management regimes. We found no evidence that this biomass build-up resulted from predator depletion or increased food availability but suggest it emerged in response to a park-wide cessation of fishing with large drive nets known as muroami. The biomass increase was accompanied by a modest increase in taxonomic richness and a slight decrease in community-scale rarity that did not alter functional redundancy levels. Subtle changes in both functional specialization and identity of assemblages emerged as generalist species with low intrinsic vulnerability to fishing recovered sooner than more vulnerable specialists. While this implies a recovery of mechanisms responsible for the grazing of algal turfs and detritus, restoring other facets of herbivory (e.g., macroalgal consumption) may require more time. An increase in the cost-benefit ratio per journey of muroami fishing facilitated a ban on muroami nets that met minimal resistance. Similar windows of opportunity may emerge elsewhere in which gear-based regulations can supplement zoning plans, especially when compliance is low. This does not advocate for implementing such regulations once a fishery has become unprofitable. Rather, it underlines their importance for breaking the cycle of resource depletion and low compliance to zoning, thus alleviating the resulting threats to food security and ecosystem integrity.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Herbivorous fish rise as a destructive fishing practice falls in an Indonesian marine national park

Bejarano

Pardede

Campbell

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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“…For example, following climate-induced coral bleaching, fished reefs with reduced herbivore populations have a greater propensity to become dominated by macroalgae [21]. For that reason, some coral reef management strategies now focus specifically on protecting or restoring herbivorous fish populations [22,23]. There is a need, therefore, to better understand the role of the natural environment in determining distribution patterns of herbivorous fishes [8,24–26] independent of local human impacts on coral reefs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural bounds on herbivorous coral reef fishes

et al. 2016

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Humans are an increasingly dominant driver of Earth's biological communities, but differentiating human impacts from natural drivers of ecosystem state is crucial. Herbivorous fish play a key role in maintaining coral dominance on coral reefs, and are widely affected by human activities, principally fishing. We assess the relative importance of human and biophysical (habitat and oceanographic) drivers on the biomass of five herbivorous functional groups among 33 islands in the central and western Pacific Ocean. Human impacts were clear for some, but not all, herbivore groups. Biomass of browsers, large excavators, and of all herbivores combined declined rapidly with increasing human population density, whereas grazers, scrapers, and detritivores displayed no relationship. Sea-surface temperature had significant but opposing effects on the biomass of detritivores (positive) and browsers (negative). Similarly, the biomass of scrapers, grazers, and detritivores correlated with habitat structural complexity; however, relationships were group specific. Finally, the biomass of browsers and large excavators was related to island geomorphology, both peaking on low-lying islands and atolls. The substantial variability in herbivore populations explained by natural biophysical drivers highlights the need for locally appropriate management targets on coral reefs.

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“…We also did not include territorial damselfishes or omnivorous fishes, including triggerfish such as Melichthys niger , one of the more abundant triggerfishes within the KHFMA (Williams et al. ) and known to consume benthic algae in some contexts. While these species were not within the goal of this study (given that the management measures do not provide explicit protection for these taxa), further research is needed to better understand their ecological role on reefs including the KHFMA.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Benthic cover was determined from surveys conducted twice a year from 2008 to 2014 by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program and Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) (Williams et al. ). These surveys were conducted across the ~1 km 2 area of KHFMA and included ~20–50 transects per survey.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A budget of algal production and consumption by herbivorous fish in an herbivore fisheries management area, Maui, Hawaii

et al. 2017

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The relative rates of carbon fixed by primary producers vs. consumption by primary consumers shape the community of organisms in ecosystems. On coral reefs, it is important to understand the demography of algae, given known competitive dynamics with reef‐building corals. Numerous studies have shown that fleshy algal abundance is enhanced in the absence of top‐down control by herbivores on coral reefs. However, fewer studies have quantified and compared rates of production by the benthic fleshy algal community and consumption by herbivores. Here, we estimate a budget for fleshy algal growth and herbivorous fish consumption on a Hawaiian coral reef based upon integration of field‐measured and taxonomically specific variables. Data were collected at Kahekili Herbivore Fisheries Management Area, Maui, established in 2009, in which taking of herbivorous fish and urchins is prohibited. Daily algal production was determined by quantifying benthic community composition, standing stock of algal biomass, and growth rates of common algal components. Consumption was determined using distributions of biomass and size classes of herbivorous fish species, consumption rates of herbivores on different algal species, and herbivore bite sizes. Our results show that throughout the first five years of herbivore protection, algal production consistently exceeded the grazing capacity of the herbivorous fish assemblage, but by a diminishing margin since 2010 (consumption 20.8% of production) to the end of the study in 2014 (consumption 67.0% of production). Further, larger size classes of herbivorous fishes in the scraper/excavator herbivore guild contributed more to consumption in later years, which could have additional feedbacks that promote reef‐building taxa. Projecting the budget using data from a neighboring decades‐long protected herbivorous fish assemblage indicated that the production and consumption budget for Kahekili could become balanced in future with continued management.

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Responses of Herbivorous Fishes and Benthos to 6 Years of Protection at the Kahekili Herbivore Fisheries Management Area, Maui

Cited by 45 publications

References 61 publications

Herbivorous fish rise as a destructive fishing practice falls in an Indonesian marine national park

Herbivorous fish rise as a destructive fishing practice falls in an Indonesian marine national park

Natural bounds on herbivorous coral reef fishes

A budget of algal production and consumption by herbivorous fish in an herbivore fisheries management area, Maui, Hawaii

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