Abstract
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a primary strategy for marine conservation worldwide, having as a common goal the protection of essential habitats to enhance fish population recovery. However, MPAs alone may not be effective because species are not isolated from critical impacts occurring outside their boundaries. We evaluated how protecting critical nursery habitats affect the population of an important fishing target, using a 6-year database to predict juvenile hotspots and estimate population trends of the endemic and endangered parrotfish Scarus trispinosus within a mosaic of MPAs at the Abrolhos Bank, NE Brazil. We found that important nursery habitats are within no-take areas, but both juvenile and adult populations still show a declining trend over time. MPAs failed to ensure population maintenance and recovery likely due to overfishing in adjacent areas and the lack of compliance to management rules within multiple-use and within no-take MPAs. MPAs alone are not enough to protect ecologically important endangered species, but is still one of the only conservation strategies, particularly in developing countries. Our results shed light on the need for a wider adoption of more effective conservation policies in addition to MPAs, both in Brazil and in countries with similar governance contexts.
Highlights
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are one of the main management strategies to conserve and restore marine biodiversity, being especially important for vulnerable species that are under high fishing p ressure[1]
The identification of nursery grounds, for instance, is essential because these habitats contribute disproportionately more to the production of individuals that recruit to the adult population in comparison to other habitats used by the species during its life c ycle[2]
Many studies show the benefits of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in conserving and restoring marine biodiversity[1,13,43]
Summary
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are one of the main management strategies to conserve and restore marine biodiversity, being especially important for vulnerable species that are under high fishing p ressure[1]. The conservation of fishing-target species may be improved by the protection of key habitats for the species life c ycles[2]. As parrotfishes (Labridae: Scarinae) perform important ecological roles on reefs, including carbonate bioerosion and grazing of a lgae[15,16]. Fishing pressure on this group has significantly increased in the last few decades following the decline in most predatory fish previously targeted[17,18], causing the decline of several parrotfishes’ populations worldwide, including in the southwestern A tlantic[19]. Since the early 2000’s, the species became one of the most exploited species in the Abrolhos Bank, which comprises one of the largest marine protected areas in Brazil and one of the largest remnant populations of S. trispinosus[12]
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