TY - JOUR
T1 - Managing local stressors for coral reef condition and ecosystem services delivery under climate scenarios
AU - Weijerman, Mariska
AU - Veazey, Lindsay
AU - Yee, Susan
AU - Vaché, Kellie
AU - Delevaux, Jade M.S.
AU - Donovan, Mary K.
AU - Falinski, Kim
AU - Lecky, Joey
AU - Oleson, Kirsten L.L.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Weijerman, Veazey, Yee, Vaché, Delevaux, Donovan, Falinski, Lecky and Oleson.
PY - 2018/11/9
Y1 - 2018/11/9
N2 - Coral reefs provide numerous ecosystem goods and services, but are threatened by multiple environmental and anthropogenic stressors. To identify management scenarios that will reverse or mitigate ecosystem degradation, managers can benefit from tools that can quantify projected changes in ecosystem services due to alternative management options. We used a spatially-explicit biophysical ecosystem model to evaluate socio-ecological trade-offs of land-based vs. marine-based management scenarios, and local-scale vs. global-scale stressors and their cumulative impacts. To increase the relevance of understanding ecological change for the public and decision-makers, we used four ecological production functions to translate the model outputs into the ecosystem services: "State of the Reef," "Trophic Integrity," "Fisheries Production," and "Fisheries Landings." For a case study of Maui Nui, Hawai'i, land-based management attenuated coral cover decline whereas fisheries management promoted higher total fish biomass. Placement of no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) across 30% of coral reef areas led to a reversal of the historical decline in predatory fish biomass, although this outcome depended on the spatial arrangement of MPAs. Coral cover declined less severely under strict sediment mitigation scenarios. However, the benefits of these local management scenarios were largely lost when accounting for climate-related impacts. Climate-related stressors indirectly increased herbivore biomass due to the shift from corals to algae and, hence, greater food availability. The two ecosystem services related to fish biomass increased under climate-related stressors but "Trophic Integrity" of the reef declined, indicating a less resilient reef. "State of the Reef" improved most and "Trophic Integrity" declined least under an optimistic global warming scenario and strict local management. This work provides insight into the relative influence of land-based vs. marine-based management and local vs. global stressors as drivers of changes in ecosystem dynamics while quantifying the tradeoffs between conservation- and extraction-oriented ecosystem services.
AB - Coral reefs provide numerous ecosystem goods and services, but are threatened by multiple environmental and anthropogenic stressors. To identify management scenarios that will reverse or mitigate ecosystem degradation, managers can benefit from tools that can quantify projected changes in ecosystem services due to alternative management options. We used a spatially-explicit biophysical ecosystem model to evaluate socio-ecological trade-offs of land-based vs. marine-based management scenarios, and local-scale vs. global-scale stressors and their cumulative impacts. To increase the relevance of understanding ecological change for the public and decision-makers, we used four ecological production functions to translate the model outputs into the ecosystem services: "State of the Reef," "Trophic Integrity," "Fisheries Production," and "Fisheries Landings." For a case study of Maui Nui, Hawai'i, land-based management attenuated coral cover decline whereas fisheries management promoted higher total fish biomass. Placement of no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) across 30% of coral reef areas led to a reversal of the historical decline in predatory fish biomass, although this outcome depended on the spatial arrangement of MPAs. Coral cover declined less severely under strict sediment mitigation scenarios. However, the benefits of these local management scenarios were largely lost when accounting for climate-related impacts. Climate-related stressors indirectly increased herbivore biomass due to the shift from corals to algae and, hence, greater food availability. The two ecosystem services related to fish biomass increased under climate-related stressors but "Trophic Integrity" of the reef declined, indicating a less resilient reef. "State of the Reef" improved most and "Trophic Integrity" declined least under an optimistic global warming scenario and strict local management. This work provides insight into the relative influence of land-based vs. marine-based management and local vs. global stressors as drivers of changes in ecosystem dynamics while quantifying the tradeoffs between conservation- and extraction-oriented ecosystem services.
KW - Biophysical model
KW - Coral reefs
KW - Ecosystem-based management
KW - Future scenarios
KW - Hawai'i
KW - Multiple stressors
KW - Trade-off
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85056144819&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85056144819&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fmars.2018.00425
DO - 10.3389/fmars.2018.00425
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85056144819
SN - 2296-7745
VL - 9
JO - Frontiers in Marine Science
JF - Frontiers in Marine Science
IS - NOV
M1 - 425
ER -