[Coral-List] NOAA Caribbean connectivity conservation series available

[rikki dunsmore]

We are pleased to announce the addition of a new report to the ONMS
Conservation Series! The report is available on the ONMS Conservation Series
Web site: 

http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/science/conservation/welcome.html

 

*Caribbean Connectivity: Implications for Marine Protected Area Management *

 

Numerous field studies have documented the sedentary habits of most species
of fish on coral reefs. This habit of staying put, and a strong tendency to
associate with specific types of habitat, jointly result in reef fish
species being distributed patchily across the available environment at a
range of spatial scales. Local aggregations function as breeding groups that
may be more or less isolated demographically from nearby groups of the same
species, and the set of local groups is probably best represented as a
metapopulation.

 

Current studies of connectivity are attempts to quantify the extent of
interconnection among local groups, a topic of considerable importance
because of the growing prevalence of spatially based management approaches,
such as the use of no-take marine reserves. Such management approaches
should be based on sound knowledge of the spatial scales at which local
groups are interconnected. In a similar way, communities of fish on coral
reefs can best be thought of as metassemblages (or metacommunities), in
which each of the individual species present at a local site represents one
node in its own metapopulation, with the proviso that the metapopulations
may well exist on different spatial scales. To date, the consequences of
metassemblage structure for interspecific interactions have scarcely been
explored. A number of recent reviews have focused on each of these topics.
Our goal is to unify those topics, linking spatial arrangement to
connectivity and metapopulation structure, relating these to management, and
exploring methodological options for advancing knowledge of connectivity in
these organisms.

 

Thank you, 

 

Brian Keller, Kathy Broughton, Steve Gittings  and Rikki Grober-Dunsmore

 

 

 

Rikki Grober-Dunsmore, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Institute of Applied Sciences

Private Bag, Laucala Campus

University of the South Pacific

Suva, Fiji Islands

 

Office : (+679) 323 2981

Mobile: (+679) 906-5476

FAX: (+679) 323 1534

 

 

 

Unless someone like you

cares a whole awful lot, 

Nothing is going to get better,

Its simply not.

 

- The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss, 1971