[Coral-List] east african connectivity

Griffiths, Richard richard.n.griffiths at imperial.ac.uk
Thu Jun 29 10:14:38 EDT 2006


Dear listers.

As part of an assessment of the MPA systems of Kenya Tanzania (as an MSc thesis), I was hoping to, however simplistically, to come up with an maximum 'separation distance' for MPAs in the region. Darwall and Guard (in 'Coral Reefs of the Indian Ocean) provide a figure for the speed of the East African Coastal Current of up to 3m/s during the South East Monsoon. If I assume larval duration for coral to be 4-72 hrs (given for Acroporids and Pocilloporids in Shanks et al 2003 - in Ecological Applications), is it then at all resonable to estimate a maximum separation (for coral larval connectivity for the shortest duration at the fastest annual speed) to be 3m/s*60secs*60mins*4hrs - e.g approx 40km? I know this is only ever going to be an approximation, but for my purposes (unless it is completely unreasonable) that may do fine.

Any comments welcome as I am more of a policy man than a scientist. (Any other interesting thoughts or views on East African MPAs welcome too!).

Many thanks,

Richard Griffiths
MSc candidate - Global Environmental Change and Policy, Imperial College



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