Abstract
Ensuring the efficacy of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) requires that adequate management strategies be implemented according to the MPA’s objectives. Within the scope of species conservation, achieving MPA objectives demands understanding of the role played by MPAs for the target species. In 2014, Brazilian stakeholders and experts set the action plan for elasmobranchs’ conservation, which intended to create new protected areas and expand the existing ones. Nevertheless, more than 65% of Brazilian elasmobranch species are threatened by anthropogenic pressures such as fisheries and habitat loss. In addition, their ecological aspects are not well studied, which might jeopardize the success of the proposed actions. To assess the functionality and effectiveness of two no-take MPAs for sixteen demersal species, the Wildlife Refuge of Alcatrazes (WRA) and the Tupinambás Ecological Station (TES), we evaluated the community structure, space-time variations in functional diversity and changes in fishery indicators. Community dynamics were driven by inshore intrusion and time persistent effects of a cold and nutrient-rich water mass, the South Atlantic Central Water, which increased the relative abundance of species, functional groups, and overall diversity. Spatially, the heterogeneity of benthic habitats, due to the action of stronger waves in specific parts of the MPAs, reflects a diverse community of benthic invertebrates, explaining differences in relative abundance and similarities in space use by the functional groups. Regarding effectiveness, the MPAs make up a key network with the surrounding protection areas to support the ecosystem maintenance on the central and northern coast of the São Paulo state. The establishment of the TES has positively influenced the community throughout the years while the recent creation of the WRA may have promoted some improvements in fisheries indicators for a threatened guitarfish. We propose different functions of the Alcatrazes archipelago for each species and suggest some measures to enhance not only elasmobranch conservation but also the MPAs’ effectiveness.
Highlights
Governments have been using Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to manage use of ocean resources
The water mass was detected in all years except 2019, which was characterized by higher values of temperature/salinity and homogeneity in the water column with the majority of temperature records from 22.4 to 23.5◦C
The 2018 campaign was conducted in summer, the South Atlantic Central Water (SACW) was only detected at oceanographic stations exposed to the open ocean (#08, #09, #10, #11, and #12) and in the area between the Sapata and Alcatrazes islands (#05)
Summary
Governments have been using Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to manage use of ocean resources. MPAs can address socioenvironmental issues by supporting traditional fishing communities, avoiding fisheries depletion and marine habitat degradation, and maintaining ecological services (Halpern, 2003; Fox et al, 2012). They are usually employed as a tool for conservation of critical habitats and dependent organisms, accounting for different requirements through a species’ life stages that can be safeguarded from anthropogenic disturbances (Claudet et al, 2010; Grüss et al, 2011; Wiegand et al, 2011; Knip et al, 2012; Rolim et al, 2019). At least 65% of the species recorded in Brazilian waters are threatened or have insufficient data (ICMBio, 2016b; IUCN, 2021) and this lack of information might jeopardize the success of conservation and management actions (Gill et al, 2017; Giakoumi et al, 2018)
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