DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Riverine reserves: Testing marine reserve design theory in an existing network of community-based protected areas in Southeast Asia

污染、栖息地退化和捕捞导致世界各地淡水鱼种群和多样性急剧减少。对许多人，特别是发展中国家的人来说，鱼是日常营养的重要来源。在海洋生态系统中，为了增加鱼类的丰度和多样性，大片地区被划为海洋保护区。以前的研究表明，在含有重要鱼类栖息地的地区，通过限制捕捞，鱼类的丰度和多样性通常比邻近的未受保护的地区增加。保护区内鱼类数量的增加也导致更多的鱼类进入捕捞区，并可以提高当地的总体捕捞率。然而，迄今为止，这项研究尚未应用于淡水系统。这个研究项目将探索泰国北部的一个保护区网络，以测试河流保护区在增加河流鱼类的丰度和多样性方面的有效性。还将收集有关保护区年龄和保护水平的其他信息。最后，研究人员将绘制河流栖息地地图，并测量鱼类进出保护区的情况。研究结果将与政府官员、学者和资源管理人员分享。这项研究将为保护全球淡水生物多样性的新方法提供新的见解，并有可能增加河流继续为全球人民提供重要营养的能力。这个研究项目将把为海洋保护区开发的理论体系应用于泰国北部Ngao河的淡水保护区网络。先前对海洋保护区的荟萃分析表明，包括保护时间、大小、间距和分布在内的因素是预测海洋保护区成功的关键。研究人员将利用广泛的实地调查来绘制一个现有网络，该网络由一个1000平方公里的流域内40多个小型的、由当地社区发起的禁捕保护区组成。鱼类密度和物种丰富度将测量成对保护区/非保护区使用各种视觉普查方法。此外，侧面扫描声纳将用于生成保护区和非保护区的精确栖息地地图，并跟踪鱼类在保护区外的扩散情况。研究人员将使用广义线性混合效应模型来检验因变量（物种特异性保护区响应因子、营养群响应因子和Bray-Curtis群落差异指数）与上述RRs测量特征（如保护区大小、年龄、栖息地组成等）之间的显著关系。这项研究的结果将为未来的淡水保护策略提供信息，也可能反过来为海洋保护区理论提供信息。

Pollution, habitat degradation, and harvest have resulted in dramatically reduced freshwater fish stocks and diversity around the world. For many people, especially those in developing countries, fish constitutes a critical source of daily nutrition. In marine ecosystems, to increase fish abundance and diversity, large areas have been set aside as marine protected areas. Previous research has shown that by restricting harvest in areas containing important fish habitat, fish abundance and diversity generally increases compared to adjacent unprotected areas. This in-creased number of fish inside the reserves also results in a greater number of fish entering fished areas, and can increase local harvest rates overall. To date, however, this research has not been applied to freshwater systems. This research project will explore a network of protect-ed areas in northern Thailand in order to test the effectiveness of river protected areas in in-creasing the abundance and diversity of fish in rivers. Additional information regarding the age of the reserves and level of protection will also be collected. Finally, the researchers will map river habitats and measure fish movement in and out of reserves. Results will be shared with government officials, academics and resource managers. This research will provide new in-sights into new ways of conserving global freshwater biodiversity, and potentially increase the ability of rivers to continue to provide important nutrition to people globally. This research project will apply the body of theory developed for marine protected areas (MPAs) to a network of freshwater protected areas in the Ngao River, northern Thailand. Previous meta-analyses of MPAs has suggested that factors including duration of protection, size, spacing, and dispersal are key to predicting MPA success. Researchers will use extensive fieldwork to map an existing network of over 40 small, local community-initiated no-take reserves within a 1,000 square kilometer watershed. Fish densities and species richness will be measured for paired reserve/non-reserve areas using a variety of visual census methods. Additionally, side-scanning sonar will be used to generate accurate habitat maps of both reserve and non-reserve areas and to track dispersal of fish out of reserve areas. Researchers will use generalized linear mixed-effects models to test for significant relationships between dependent variables (species-specific reserve response factors, trophic group response factors, and Bray-Curtis community dissimilarity indices) and the measured characteristics of RRs listed above (e.g., reserve size, age, habitat composition, etc.). The results of this study will inform future freshwater conservation strategies and may also reciprocally inform marine protected area theory as well.