Novel approaches to coral reef conservation

珊瑚礁是地球上最有价值的生态系统之一，但由于过度捕捞、污染、疾病和气候变化，它们也是最受威胁的生态系统之一。为了应对保护珊瑚礁同时允许其可持续利用的挑战，我们正在使用新的统计和理论方法解决珊瑚礁保护中最紧迫的三个问题。我们的第一个目标是衡量海洋保护区在保护珊瑚栖息地方面的有效性，以及影响其有效性的因素。为了实现这一目标，我们对加勒比地区400多个珊瑚礁的时间序列生态数据进行了荟萃分析，以比较海洋保护区内外的变化速度。我们的第二个目标是了解使用珊瑚礁资源的人如何选择开发哪些珊瑚礁。在这里，我们借用了行为生态学理论的一般框架来理解为什么珊瑚礁渔民在他们捕鱼的地方捕鱼，为什么潜水员在他们潜水的地方潜水。找到管理看似非常不同的活动的一般原则，应该有助于珊瑚礁和其他被开发系统的管理者了解是什么控制了用户的空间分布，以及如何设计低冲突的管理选择。最后，我们正在解开人类活动对珊瑚礁生物的复杂间接影响。我们的重点是将清洁濑鱼和小丑鱼这两个物种从野外移走，用于水族贸易，并跟踪对其他鱼类和无脊椎动物的影响，这些物种不是贸易的直接目标，但与目标物种关系密切。综合起来，这些研究将大大提高我们对人类对珊瑚礁影响的理解，并将阐明减轻这些影响的方法。

Coral reefs are among the most valuable ecosystems on the planet but they are also among the most threatened because of overfishing, pollution, disease and climate change.  To address the challenges of preserving coral reefs while allowing their sustainable use, we are addressing three of the most pressing issues in reef conservation using novel statistical and theoretical approaches.  Our first goal is to measure how effective marine reserves are in protecting coral habitats and what influences their effectiveness.  To achieve this, we are using meta-analyses of time-series of ecological data from over 400 reefs across the Caribbean to compare the rates of change in and out of marine reserves.  Our second goal is to understand how people who use reef resources choose which reefs to exploit.  Here, we are using a general framework borrowed from behavioural ecology theory to understand why reef fishermen fish where they do, and why divers dive where they do.  Finding general principles that govern seemingly very different activities should help managers of coral reefs, and other exploited systems, understand what controls the spatial distribution of users and how to devise low-conflict management options.  Finally, we are unraveling the complex indirect impacts of human activities on reef organisms.  We are focusing on the removal of two species, cleaner wrasse and clownfish, from the wild for the aquarium trade and tracking the effects on other species of fish and invertebrates which are not directly targeted by the trade but have close relationships with the targeted species.  Taken together, these studies will advance significantly our understanding of the impacts of humans on coral reefs and will shed light on ways to mitigate these impacts.