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。为了应对在保护珊瑚礁的同时允许其可持续利用的挑战，我们正在利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是什么影响了它们的有效性。为了实现这一点，我们正在使用来自加勒比海400多个珊瑚礁的生态数据时间序列的荟萃分析来比较海洋保护区内外的变化率。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，我们使用从行为生态学理论借鉴的一般框架来理解为什么珊瑚礁渔民在他们做的地方捕鱼，以及为什么潜水员在他们做的地方潜水。通过寻找管理看似截然不同的活动的一般原则，应该帮助珊瑚礁管理者和其他被开发的系统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项。最后，我们正在揭示人类活动对珊瑚礁生物的复杂间接影响。我们正在重点研究将两个物种从野生环境中移走，用于水族馆贸易，并追踪对其他鱼类和无脊椎动物物种的影响，这些物种不是水族馆贸易的直接目标，但与目标物种关系密切。综合起来，这些研究将极大地促进我们对人类对珊瑚礁影响的了解，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.