Marine reserves are implemented to achieve a variety of objectives, but are seldom rigorously evaluated to determine whether those objectives are met. In the rare cases when evaluations do take place, they typically focus on ecological indicators and ignore other relevant objectives such as socioeconomics and governance. And regardless of the objectives, the diversity of locations, monitoring p...

Despite their role in supporting diverse marine fish communities, tropical rocky shores and reefs have attracted less research and fewer targeted conservation efforts compared to coral reefs. We studied fish community composition in Playa Blanca Marine Reserve (9 degrees 40' N - 84 degrees 40' W), a rocky shore site on the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica. We conducted visual surveys of fish...

Catastrophic events such as oil spills, hypoxia, disease, and major predation events occur in marine ecosystems and affect fish populations. Previous evaluations of the performance of spatial management alternatives have not considered catastrophic events. We investigate the effects of local and global catastrophic events on populations managed with and without no-take marine reserves and with ...

Conservation of marine species through fisheries management and no-take marine reserves have focused primarily on single species, but such protection may influence the target speciesʼ predators, prey, competitors, or mutualists. Conversely, successful protection may depend on responses of these other species. Empirical data and previous theory indicate that fisheries status and life-history att...

Marine reserve theory suggests that where large, productive populations are protected within no-take marine reserves, fished areas outside reserves will benefit through the spillover of larvae produced in the reserves. However, empirical evidence for larval export has been sparse. Here we use a simple idealized coastline model to estimate the expected magnitude and spatial scale of larval expor...

We consider the optimal spacing between marine reserves for maximising the viability of a species occupying a reserve network. The closer the networks are placed together, the higher the probability of colonisation of an empty reserve by an occupied reserve, thus increasing population viability. However, the closer the networks are placed together, the higher the probability that a catastrophe ...

Can rates of biomass recovery of fished species be inferred reliably from once-only spatial comparisons of no-take marine reserves of different ages and fished areas? We used underwater visual census at 15 no-take marine reserves in the Philippines to both infer and measure such rates. We made a single estimate of the biomass of large predatory fishes (Serranidae, Lutjanidae, Lethrinidae) targe...

The reef biota in four Tasmanian marine reserves and at associated unprotected reference sites was investigated over a 6-year period following protection from fishing. The largest reserve at Maria Island (7 km coastline length) proved the most effective at achieving species conservation and resource enhancement. The number of fish, invertebrate and algal species, the densities of large fishes (...

The habitat requirements of fishes and other marine organisms often change with ontogeny, so many harvested species exhibit such extreme large-scale spatial segregation between life stages that all life stages cannot be protected within a single marine reserve. Nevertheless, most discussions of marine reserves have focused narrowly on single lifehistory events (e.g., reproduction or settlement)...