Reefs of an uninhabited Caribbean island: fishes, benthic habitat, and opportunities to discern reef fishing impact
Navassa Island is a tiny, (5 km super(2)) uninhabited US protectorate located between Jamaica and Haiti. It is part of the Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge, under the jurisdiction of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. We conducted a quantitative ...
Abundance estimates of the Indo-Pacific lionfish Pterois volitans/miles complex in the Western North Atlantic
"Less than a decade after being observed off Florida, the invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish is now widely distributed off the southeast coast of the United States. As a step towards measuring invasion impacts to native communities, we examine the magnitude a...
Conservation of coral reef biodiversity: a comparison of reserve selection procedures for corals and fishes
"A range of different biodiversity-based selection methods for nature reserves has been tested for terrestrial environments, including those based on diversity hotspots, endemicity hotspots and complementarity. In this study, we investigate the utility of...
The current worldwide degradation of coral reefs constitutes an international problem that calls for immediate attention. A multitude of conservation hotspots scattered over the circumtropical seas have been identified, but there has been no general agree...
Assessing the effects of marine protected area (MPA) on a reef fish assemblage in a northwestern Mediterranean marine reserve: Identifying community-based indicators.
"Marine protected areas (MPAs) are increasingly envisaged as a tool to manage coastal ecosystems and fisheries. Assessment of their performance with respect to management objectives is therefore important. A number of MPAs provided conservation benefits f...
Migrations of green turtles in the central South Pacific
"Migrations of seven post-nesting green turtles at Rose Atoll (American Samoa) were tracked by satellite transmitters in 1993-1995. Most turtles migrated 1600 km to foraging areas in Fiji and occupied home ranges averaging 27 km2. Additional tag recapture...
Alleviating impacts of anthropogenic activities by traditional conservation measures: can a small reef reserve be sustainably managed?
"Zoning schemes that are becoming an important management tool in large marine reserves, are difficult to implement in small reef areas. At the 3.4 km long reef of Eilat (Red Sea), a small (ca. 350 m of coastline) enclosure strategy has been enforced sinc...
The significance of coral disease epizootiology for coral reef conservation
There are many aspects of coral disease that are poorly understood. The relationship, if any, between human activities and the incidence of coral disease is particularly important since it is frequently assumed that the number and prevalence of diseases a...
"We provide a case study to demonstrate how a key ecosystem function of coral reefs (habitat provision) co-benefits both sharks and humans. Spawning grounds of the blackmouth catshark Galeus melastomus were discovered using seabed and video surveys on the...
When the species is also a habitat: Comparing the predictively modelled distributions of Lophelia pertusa and the reef habitat it forms
"Internationally there is political momentum to establish networks of marine protected areas for the conservation of threatened species and habitats. Practical implementation of such networks requires an understanding of the distribution of these species ...
Reefs of an uninhabited Caribbean island: fishes, benthic habitat, and opportunities to discern reef fishing impact