[Coral-List] reserves and coral recovery

[Mumby, Peter]

Dear Coral-list

Some of you may be interested in a paper that's just been published in the open-access journal, PLoS One, which shows that the recovery of corals on  Bahamian reefs was strongly impacted by macroalgal cover. Coral populations in a well-enforced reserve, that had elevated fish grazing and less macroalgae, exhibited a trajectory of recovery whereas those outside a reserve tended to remain static or decline further.

The implication is that steps to manage algal cover, through the management of fish, urchins, water quality, and coral cover, can have a significant bearing on coral recovery - at least in the Caribbean.

Apologies for advertising this paper on the list but the journal is not included in most reference databases and we thought that the results might interest reef managers.

A pdf of the paper can be downloaded free of charge from:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008657

Cheers

Pete & Al

Professor Peter J Mumby
Marine Spatial Ecology Lab
University of Exeter
e-mail: p.j.mumby at exeter.ac.uk<mailto:p.j.mumby at exeter.ac.uk>

>From 1st April: School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Australia