Some studies suggest that fishery yields can be higher with reserves than under conventional management. However, the economic performance of fisheries depends on economic profit, not fish yield. The predictions of higher yields with reserves rely on intensive fishing pressures between reserves; the exorbitant costs of harvesting low-density populations erode profits. We incorporated this effec...

The largest protected areas of any kind have all recently been established in the ocean. Since 2012, 5 protected areas that exceed 1 million km2 in size have been created, mostly in remote oceanic areas. The potential conservation and fisheries benefits of such reserves have been debated in the public, the media, and the scientific literature. Little is known about their effectiveness for com m...

This study reports the response of snapper Pagrus auratus to the establishment of notake status in a marine reserve around the Poor Knights Islands in northeastern New Zealand. The Poor Knights and 2 reference locations, Cape Brett and the Mokohinau Islands, were sampled biannually for 4 yr using baited underwater video (BUV). Following the implementation of full marine reserve status at the Po...

As human impacts cause ecosystem-wide changes in the oceans, the need to protect and restore marine resources has led to increasing calls for and establishment of marine reserves. Scientific information about marine reserves has multiplied over the last decade, providing useful knowledge about this tool for resource users, managers, policy makers, and the general public. This information must b...

This paper employs a dynamic and spatial model of renewable resource exploitation to investigate the effects of marine reserve creation. The model combines a metapopulation model incorporating resource patch heterogeneity and dispersal with a behaviorally based spatially explicit harvesting model that assumes that fishermen choose location in a manner that eliminates spatial arbitrage opportuni...

There is debate concerning the most effective conservation of marine biodiversity, especially regarding the appropriate location, size, and connectivity of marine reserves. We describe a means of establishing marine reserve networks by using optimization algorithms and multiple levels of information on biodiversity, ecological processes (spawning, recruitment, and larval connectivity), and soci...

In the process of implementing marine reserves, policy makers typically are occupied with (1) choosing the spatial configuration of areas to protect and (2) addressing the concerns of fishermen regarding the effects of proposed reserves on fishery yield. The spatial configuration is typically set by choosing the habitat, species, and ecosystems to protect, assuming that the associated species w...

In the midst of several management failures, marine reserves are seen as a potential management tool to control overexploitation. In the literature, both modelling and empirical work have demonstrated that closing an area to fishing would lead to an increase in biomass and mean body size within the reserve. Benefits, in the form of increased catch, outside the reserves are sometimes shown using...

Methods We quantified fish densities on coral reefs (38 sites) and in mangrove forests (19 sites) across seven marine reserves and twelve unprotected control locations. Fish assemblages were in seascapes supporting either adjacent reefs and mangroves or isolated reefs. For each reserve-control comparison, we evaluated the potential interactive effects of habitat connectivity on species richness...

This study investigated the effects of a fully protected marine reserve on commercially valuable scallops and benthic habitats in Lamlash Bay, Isle of Arran, United Kingdom. Dive surveys found the abundance of juvenile scallops to be greater within the marine reserve than outside. A novel multivariate approach, based upon neural networks and generalised linear models, revealed the greater abund...