Climate resilience in marine protected areas and the ‘Protection Paradox’
Climate resilience in marine protected areas and the ‘Protection Paradox’
Restricting human activities through Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is assumed to create more resilient biological communities with a greater capacity to resist and recover following climate events. Here we review the evidence linking protection from local pressures (e.g., fishing and habitat destruction) with increased resilience. Despite strong theoretical underpinnings, studies have only rarely attributed resilience responses to the recovery of food webs and habitats, and increases in the diversity of communities and populations. When detected, resistance to ocean warming and recovery after extreme events in MPAs have small effect sizes against a backdrop of natural variability. By contrast, large die-offs are well described from MPAs following climate stress events. This may be in part because protection from one set of pressures or drivers (such as fishing) can select for species that are highly sensitive to others (such as warming), creating a ‘Protection Paradox’. Given that climate change is overwhelming the resilience capacity of marine ecosystems, the only primary solution is to reduce carbon emissions. High-quality monitoring data in both space and time can also identify emergent resilience signals that do exist, in combination with adequate reference data to quantify the initial system state. This knowledge will allow networks of diverse protected areas to incorporate spatial refugia against climate change, and identify resilient biological components of natural systems. Sufficient spatial replication further offers insurance against losses in any given MPA, and the possibility for many weak signals of resilience to accumulate.
305-314
Bates, Amanda E.
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Cooke, Robert S.C.
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Duncan, Murray I.
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Edgar, Graham J.
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Bruno, John F.
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Benedetti-Cecchi, Lisandro
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Côté, Isabelle M.
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Lefcheck, Jonathan S.
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Costello, Mark John
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Barrett, Neville
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Bird, Tomas J.
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Fenberg, Phillip B.
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Stuart-Smith, Rick D.
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1 August 2019
Bates, Amanda E.
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Cooke, Robert S.C.
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Duncan, Murray I.
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Edgar, Graham J.
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Bruno, John F.
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Benedetti-Cecchi, Lisandro
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Côté, Isabelle M.
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Lefcheck, Jonathan S.
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Costello, Mark John
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Barrett, Neville
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Bird, Tomas J.
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Fenberg, Phillip B.
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Stuart-Smith, Rick D.
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Bates, Amanda E., Cooke, Robert S.C., Duncan, Murray I., Edgar, Graham J., Bruno, John F., Benedetti-Cecchi, Lisandro, Côté, Isabelle M., Lefcheck, Jonathan S., Costello, Mark John, Barrett, Neville, Bird, Tomas J., Fenberg, Phillip B. and Stuart-Smith, Rick D.
(2019)
Climate resilience in marine protected areas and the ‘Protection Paradox’.
Biological Conservation, 236, .
(doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2019.05.005).
Abstract
Restricting human activities through Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is assumed to create more resilient biological communities with a greater capacity to resist and recover following climate events. Here we review the evidence linking protection from local pressures (e.g., fishing and habitat destruction) with increased resilience. Despite strong theoretical underpinnings, studies have only rarely attributed resilience responses to the recovery of food webs and habitats, and increases in the diversity of communities and populations. When detected, resistance to ocean warming and recovery after extreme events in MPAs have small effect sizes against a backdrop of natural variability. By contrast, large die-offs are well described from MPAs following climate stress events. This may be in part because protection from one set of pressures or drivers (such as fishing) can select for species that are highly sensitive to others (such as warming), creating a ‘Protection Paradox’. Given that climate change is overwhelming the resilience capacity of marine ecosystems, the only primary solution is to reduce carbon emissions. High-quality monitoring data in both space and time can also identify emergent resilience signals that do exist, in combination with adequate reference data to quantify the initial system state. This knowledge will allow networks of diverse protected areas to incorporate spatial refugia against climate change, and identify resilient biological components of natural systems. Sufficient spatial replication further offers insurance against losses in any given MPA, and the possibility for many weak signals of resilience to accumulate.
Text
Protection_Paradox_R2_Compiled
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 3 May 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 5 June 2019
Published date: 1 August 2019
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 431843
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/431843
ISSN: 0006-3207
PURE UUID: bf8aa64d-7e5d-4695-81cc-48f4dbe2a938
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Date deposited: 19 Jun 2019 16:30
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 05:24
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Contributors
Author:
Amanda E. Bates
Author:
Robert S.C. Cooke
Author:
Murray I. Duncan
Author:
Graham J. Edgar
Author:
John F. Bruno
Author:
Lisandro Benedetti-Cecchi
Author:
Isabelle M. Côté
Author:
Jonathan S. Lefcheck
Author:
Mark John Costello
Author:
Neville Barrett
Author:
Tomas J. Bird
Author:
Rick D. Stuart-Smith
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