New tools for designing effective marine reserves

Marine reserves represent an emerging management tool, and are a challenge to the application of basic marine ecology to applied problems. Although some aspects of reserve science are extensively researched, new information on reserves is badly needed in at least two major areas 1) the impact that reserves have on the ecosystems in which they are imbedded, and 2) the way we can use complex ecological and environmental information to inform management decisions. We describe application of four new tools in oceanography and marine ecology, developed largely in other contexts, that are being recruited to help design marine reserves. Ocean sensing over short spatial and temporal scales charts the dynamics of ocean environments, allowing us to see physical connections between reserve and non-reserve areas. Indirect monitoring of species dispersal though chemical tags and genetic comparisons can allow us to map movements of populations from place to place and measure the spread of species. Computer-based mapping tools facilitate the flexible use of GIS data bases in management decisions, and allow multiple stakeholders to have access to powerful tools to explore management options. Together these basic tools in ecology help inform management because they describe ecosystem patterns over the spatial and temporal scales that are directly relevant to conservation and ecosystem management. Palumbi et al. Marine Reserves 3 In a nutshell: Marine reserves are imbedded in large ecosystems, but we don’t know enough about how reserves affect areas outside their borders, requiring new tools to advance our understanding. Remote sensing provides real time data about the ocean environment at scales as small as 1 km. The chemical signal of trace metals in growing skeletons provides a tracking device for where larvae and juveniles drift in the sea. Genetic differences among populations can reveal barriers to dispersal otherwise unseen, and are beginning to be used to measure the scale of dispersal inside and outside reserves. Layers of ecosystem information, placed in a geographic context by GIS mapping, provide an accessible summary of this complex information that can be used by computer search engines to list alternative management