Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T21:30:50.122Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Protection effects on Mediterranean fish assemblages associated with different rocky habitats

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

Rita Sahyoun*
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Conservation and Management of Marine and Coastal Resources, DiSTeBA, CoNISMa, University of Salento, via Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy USR 3278 CNRS-EPHE CRIOBE, University of Perpignan, Perpignan cedex 66860, France Laboratoire d'Excellence ‘CORAIL’
Simona Bussotti
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Conservation and Management of Marine and Coastal Resources, DiSTeBA, CoNISMa, University of Salento, via Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, Faculté des Sciences, EA 4228 ECOMERS, 06108 Nice cedex 2, France
Antonio Di Franco
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Conservation and Management of Marine and Coastal Resources, DiSTeBA, CoNISMa, University of Salento, via Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, Faculté des Sciences, EA 4228 ECOMERS, 06108 Nice cedex 2, France
Augusto Navone
Affiliation:
Marine Protected Area of Tavolara-Punta Coda Cavallo, Via Dante 1, 07026 Olbia, Italy
Pieraugusto Panzalis
Affiliation:
Marine Protected Area of Tavolara-Punta Coda Cavallo, Via Dante 1, 07026 Olbia, Italy
Paolo Guidetti
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Conservation and Management of Marine and Coastal Resources, DiSTeBA, CoNISMa, University of Salento, via Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, Faculté des Sciences, EA 4228 ECOMERS, 06108 Nice cedex 2, France
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: R. Sahyoun, Laboratory of Conservation and Management of Marine and Coastal Resources DiSTeBA, CoNISMa, University of Salento, via Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy email: [email protected]

Abstract

Rocky banks (i.e. sea mountain-like structures rising from the sea bottom) are hard substrate habitats of high socio-economic value (e.g. for fishermen and divers) and ecological relevance as they often host unusually high density of fish. Here we tested whether the response of fish assemblages to protection (i.e. related to the presence of a Marine Protected Area (MPA)) in rocky banks is comparable with the response of rocky reefs dropping from the coast (hereafter called ‘coastal rocky substrates’), and whether there are differences between fish assemblages associated with protected and unprotected rocky banks. Fish assemblages were assessed in shallow and deep coastal rocky substrates, and in rocky banks, in unprotected and protected conditions at a Mediterranean MPA in north-east Sardinia in August 2007 and 2008. Whole fish assemblage structures (in terms of biomass) differed between protected and unprotected conditions in both study years. Fish assemblages at rocky banks, in addition, differed from those associated with coastal rocky substrates. Total fish biomass (summing contribution of all species) was higher under protected than unprotected condition in 2007, while species richness and total fish density did not demonstrate any significant change related to protection. The responses to protection displayed by the target species Epinephelus marginatus and Diplodus sargus were clear especially in terms of greater frequency of large-sized specimens in both study years. Biomass of E. marginatus in 2007 and density of D. sargus in 2007 and 2008 were significantly higher in protected than unprotected conditions, especially in protected rocky banks. This study emphasizes the ecological and socio-economic role of protection and the potential role of rocky banks within management/conservation programmes in the Mediterranean Sea.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abdulla, A., Gomei, M., Maison, E. and Piante, C. (2008) Status of marine protected areas in the Mediterranean Sea. Malaga WWF and IUC France, 152 pp.Google Scholar
Anderson, M.J. (2001) Permutation test for univariate or multivatiate analysis of variance and regression. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 58, 626639.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayle-Sempere, J.T., Valle, C. and Verdù, A. (2002) ECOCEN v1.00.00. Application for managing fish visual counts. Universitat d'Alacant.Google Scholar
Berkes, F., Colding, J. and Folke, C. (2000) Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management. Ecolological Applications 10, 12511262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bianchi, C. and Morri, C. (2006) Piano di Gestione e Regolamentazione dell'AMP di Tavolara-Punta Coda Cavallo. Progetto per la realizzazione di cartografia tematica del territorio marino.Google Scholar
Boero, F., Bussotti, S., D'Ambrosio, P., Fraschetti, S., Guidetti, P. and Terlizzi, A. (2005) Biodiversity and Marine Protected Areas. Biologia Marina Mediterranea 12, 122.Google Scholar
Bussotti, S., Buia, M.C., Di Capua, I., Gambi, M.C., Lorenti, M., Scipione, M.B., Terlizzi, A. and Zupo, V. (1999) Preliminary biocoenotic characterization of the protected area ‘Banco Santa Croce’ (Gulf of Naples, Italy). Biologia Marina Mediterranea 6, 133135.Google Scholar
Clarke, K.R. and Warwick, R.M. (2001) Change in marine communities: an approach to statistical analysis and interpretation. Plymouth: PRIMER-E.Google Scholar
Claudet, J., Osenberg, C.W., Benedetti-Cecchi, L., Domenici, P., García-Charton, J.-A., Pérez-Ruzafa, Á., Badolmenti, F., Bayle-Sempere, J., Brito, A., Bullen, F., Culiol, J.-M., Dimech, M., Falcón, J.M., Guala, I., Milazzo, M., Sánchez-Meca, J., Somerfield, P.J., Stobart, B., Vandeperre, F., Valle, C. and Planes, S. (2008) Marine reserves: size and age do matter. Ecology Letters 11, 481489.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Culioli, J.M. and Quignard, J.P. (1999) Demographic and male territorial behaviour monitoring of dusky grouper Epinephelus marginatus (Lowe, 1834) (Pisces, Serranidae) from the Pellu Site (Natural Reserve of the Straits of Bonifacio, Corsica, N.W. Mediterranean). Marine Life 9, 39.Google Scholar
Davis, D. and Tisdell, C. (1996) Economic management of recreational scuba diving and the environment. Journal of Environmental Management 48, 229248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Franco, A., Bussotti, S., Navone, A., Panzalis, P. and Guidetti, P. (2009) Evaluating effects of total and partial restrictions to fishing on Mediterranean rocky-reef fish assemblages. Marine Ecolology Progress Series 387, 275285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgar, G.J., Barrett, N.S. and Morton, A.J. (2004) Biases associated with the use of underwater visual census techniques to quantify the density and size-structure of fish populations. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 308, 269290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erzini, K., Gonçalves, J.M.S., Bentes, L., Moutopoulos, D.K., Casal, J.A.H., Soriguer, M.C., Puente, E., Errazkin, l.A. and Stergiou, K.I. (2006) Size selectivity of trammel nets in southern European small-scale fisheries. Fisheries Research 79, 183201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fenberg, P.B., Caselle, J., Claudet, J., Clemence, M., Gaines, S., García-Charton, J.A., Gonçalves, E., Grorud-Colvert, K., Guidetti, P., Jenkins, S., Jones, P.J.S., Lester, S., McAllen, R., Moland, E., Planes, S. and Sørensen, T.K. (2012) The science of European marine reserves: status, efficacy, and future needs. Marine Policy 36, 10121021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Francour, P. (1994) Pluriannual analysis of the reserve effect on ichthyofauna in the Scandola natural reserve (Corsica, Northwestern Mediterranean). Oceanologica Acta 17, 309317.Google Scholar
Francour, P., Harmelin, J.-G., Pollard, D. and Sartoretto, S. (2001) A review of marine protected areas in the northwestern Mediterranean region: siting, usage, zonation and management. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 11, 155188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Froese, R. and Pauly, D. (2009) FishBase. Available at http://www.fishbase.org/search.php (accessed 1 June 2012)Google Scholar
Garcia-Charton, J.A. and Pérez-Ruzafa, A. (2001) Spatial pattern and the habitat structure of a Mediterranean rocky reef fish local assemblage. Marine Biology 138, 917934.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia-Charton, J.A., Pérez-Ruzafa, A., Marcos, C., Claudet, J., Badalamenti, F., Benedetticecchi, L., Falcon, J., Milazzo, M., Schembri, P. and Stobart, B. (2008) Effectiveness of European Atlanto-Mediterranean MPAs: do they accomplish the expected effects on populations, communities and ecosystems? Journal for Nature Conservation 16, 193221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia-Charton, J.A., Pérez-Ruzafa, A., Sanchez-Jerez, P., Bayle-Sempere, J.T., Reñones, O. and Moreno, D. (2004) Multi-scale spatial heterogeneity, habitat structure, and the effect of marine reserves on Western Mediterranean rocky reef fish assemblages. Marine Biology 144, 161182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia-Rubies, A. and Zabala, M. (1990) Effects of total fishing prohibition on the rocky fish assemblages of Medes Islands marine reserve (NW Mediterranean). Scientia Marina 54, 317328.Google Scholar
Graham, N.A.J., McClanahan, T.R., MacNeil, M.A., Wilson, S.K., Polunin, N.V.C. and Jennings, S. (2008) Climate warming, marine, protected areas and the ocean-scale integrity of coral reef ecosystems. PLoS ONE 3, 19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guidetti, P. (2006a) Estimating body size of sea urchins, Paracentrotus lividus and Arbacia lixula, from stomach contents of Diplodus sargus, a Mediterranean predatory fish. Journal of Applied Ichthyology 22, 9193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guidetti, P. (2006b) Marine reserves reestablish lost predatory interactions and cause community changes in rocky reefs. Ecological Applications 16, 963976.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guidetti, P., Bussotti, S., Panzalis, P. and Navone, A. (2007) Fish fauna associated with the coralligenous formations of the ‘Papa Rocky Banks’ (‘Tavolara-Punta Coda Cavallo’ Marine Protected Area, NE Sardina, Italy). Biologia Marina Mediterranea 14, 160161.Google Scholar
Guidetti, P. and Micheli, F. (2012) From arts to marine conservation: a response to Blanford and Stoehr. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10, 123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guidetti, P., Milazzo, M., Bussotti, S., Molinari, A., Murenu, M., Pais, A., Spanò, N., Balzano, R., Agardy, T., Boero, F., Carrada, G., Cattaneo-Vietti, R., Cau, A., Chemello, R., Greco, S., Manganaro, A., Notarbartolo di Sciara, G., Russo, G.F. and Tunesi, L. (2008) Italian marine reserve effectiveness: does enforcement matter? Biological Conservation 141, 699709.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guidetti, P. and Sala, E. (2007) Community-wide effects of marine reserves in the Mediterranean Sea. Marine Ecolology Progress Series 335, 4356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guidetti, P., Terlizzi, A. and Boero, F. (2004) Effects of the edible sea urchin, Paracentrotus lividus, fishery along the Apulian rocky coast (SE Italy, Mediterranean Sea). Fisheries Research 66, 287297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halpern, B. (2003) The impact of marine reserves: do reserves work and does reserve size matter? Ecolological Applications 13, 117137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harmelin-Vivien, M.L., Harmelin, J.G., Chauvet, C., Duval, C., Galzin, R., Lejeune, P., Barnabé, G., Blanc, F., Chevalier, R., Duclerc, J. and Lassane, G. (1985) Evaluation visuelle des peuplements et populations de poissons: méthodes et problèmes. Revue d'Ecologie La Terre et la Vie 40, 467539.Google Scholar
Harmelin, J.G., Bachet, F. and Garcia, F. (1995) Mediterranean marine reserves: fish indices as tests of protection efficiency. Marine Ecology 16, 233250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, T.P., Baird, A.H., Bellwood, D.R., Card, M., Connolly, S.R., Folke, C., Grosberg, R., Hoegh-Guldberg, O., Jackson, J.B.C., Kleypas, J., Lough, J.M., Marshall, P., Nyström, M., Palumbi, S.R., Pandolfi, J.M., Rosen, B. and Roughgarden, J. (2003) Climate change, human impacts, and the resilience of coral reefs. Science 301, 929933.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
IUC (1988) The World Conservation Union, 1988. Resolution 17. 38 of the 17th Assembly of the IUCN. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK, IUCN.Google Scholar
Kulbicki, M. (1998) How the acquired behaviour of commercial reef fishes may influence the results obtained from visual censuses. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 222, 1130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
La Mesa, G., Di muccio, S. and Vacchi, M. (2006) Abundance, size distribution and habitat preferences in the grouper assemblage of the Ustica marine reserve (SW Mediterranean) Cybium 30, 365377.Google Scholar
Ledlie, M.H., Graham, N.A.J., Bythell, J.C., Wilson, S.K., Jennings, S., Polunin, N.V.C. and Hardcastle, J. (2007) Phase shifts and the role of herbivory in the resilience of coral reefs. Coral Reefs 26, 641653.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lenfant, P., Louisy, P. and Licari, M. (2003) Inventory of dusky groupers (Epinephelus marginatus) in the marine reserve of Cerbère-Banyuls (France, North-Western Mediterranean Sea) after 17 years of protection. Cybium 27, 2736.Google Scholar
Leslie, H.M. (2005) A synthesis of marine conservation planning approaches. Conservation Biology 19, 17011713.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lester, S.E., Halpern, B.S., Grorud-Colvert, K., Luchenco, J., Ruttenberg, B.I., Gaines, S.D., Airamé, S. and Warner, R.R. (2009) Biological effects within no-take marine reserves: a global synthesis. Marine Ecolology Progress Series 384, 3346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louisy, P. and Culioli, J.M. (1999) Review of present knowledge on the reproductive activity of the dusky grouper Epinephelus marginatus (Lowe, 1834) in the the north-western Mediterranean. Marine Life 9, 4757.Google Scholar
Macpherson, E., Gordoa, A. and Garcia-Rubies, A. (2002) Biomass size spectra in littoral fishes in protected and unprotected areas in the NW Mediterranean. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 55, 777788.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mathieu-Tissot, V. (1999) Seasonal monitoring (spring–summer) of the Mediterranean dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus (Lowe, 1834)) population in the Cerbère-Banyuls-sur-Mer Marine Reserve. Marine Life 9, 5562.Google Scholar
McArdle, B.H. and Anderson, M.J. (2001) Fitting multivariate models to community data: a comment on distance-based redundancy analysis. Ecology 82, 290297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Micheli, F., Halpern, B.S., Botsford, L.W. and Warner, R.R. (2004) Trajectories and correlates of community change in no-take marine reserves. Ecolological Applications 14, 17091723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mouillot, D., Culioli, J.M., Pelletier, D. and Tomasini, J.A. (2008) Do we protect biological originality in protected areas? A new index and an application to the Bonifacio Strait Natural Reserve. Biological Conservation 141, 15691580 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mumby, P.J., Dahlgren, C.P., Harborne, A.R., Kappel, C.V., Micheli, F., Brumbaugh, D.R., Holmes, K.E., Mendes, J.M., Sanchirico, J.N., Buch, K., Box, S., Stoffler, R.W. and Gill, A.B. (2006) Fishing, trophic cascades, and the process of grazing on coral reefs. Science 311, 98101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Palumbi, S.R., Gaines, S.D., Leslie, H. and Warner, R.R. (2003) New wave: high-tech tools to help marine reserve research. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 1, 7379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelletier, D., Garcí-Chorton, J.A., Ferraris, J., David, G., Thébaud, O., Letourneur, Y., Claudet, J., Amand, M., Kulbicki, M. and Galzin, R. (2005) Designing indicators for assessing the effects of marine protected areas on coral reef ecosystems: a multidisciplinary standpoint. Aquatic Livinging Resources 18, 1533.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renones, O., Moranta, J., Coll, J. and Morales-Nin, B. (1997) Rocky bottom fish communities of Cabrera Archipelago National Park (Mallorca, western Mediterranean). Scientia Marina 61, 495506.Google Scholar
Sadovy De Mitcheson, Y., Colin, P. and Domeier, M. (2006) Observation et gestion des concentrations de reproducteurs en période de frai: méthodes et obstacles. Ressources Marines et Commercialisation—Bulletin de la CPS 14, 2529.Google Scholar
Sadovy De Mitcheson, Y., Cornish, A., Domeier, M., Colin, P., Russell, M. and Lindeman, K. (2008) A global baseline for spawning aggregations of reef fishes. Conservation Biology 22, 12331244.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sala, E., Aburto-Oropeza, O., Reza, M., Paredes, G. and Lopez-Lemus, L.G. (2004) Fishing down coastal food webs in the Gulf of California. Fisheries 29, 1925.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sala, E., Ballesteros, E., Dendrinos, P., Di Franco, A., Ferretti, F., Foley, D., Fraschetti, S., Friedlander, A., Garrabou, J., Güçlüsoy, H., Guidetti, P., Halpern, B.S., Hereu, B., Karamanlidis, A.A., Kizilkaya, Z., Macpherson, E., Mangialajo, L., Mariani, S., Micheli, F., Pais, A., Riser, K., Rosenberg, A.A., Sales, M., Selkoe, K.A., Starr, R., Tomas, F. and Zabala, M. (2012) The structure of Mediterranean rocky reef ecosystems across environmental and human gradients, and conservation implications. PLoS ONE 7, e32742. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032742.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sala, E., Ballesteros, E. and Starr, R.M. (2001) Rapid decline of Nassau grouper spawning aggregations in Belize: fishery management and conservation needs. Fisheries 26, 2330.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terlizzi, A., Anderson, M.J., Fraschetti, S. and Bendetti-Cecchi, L. (2007) Scales of spatial variation in Mediterranean subtidal sessile assemblages at different depths. Marine Ecology Progress Series 332, 2539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Underwood, A.J. (1997) Experiments in ecology: their logical design and interpretations using analysis of variance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 504 pp.Google Scholar
Vacchi, M., Boyer, M., Bussotti, S., Guidetti, P. and La Mesa, G. (1999) Some interesting species in the coastal fish fauna of Ustica Island (Mediterranean Sea). Cybium 23, 323331.Google Scholar
White, C., Kendall, B.E., Gaines, S., Siegel, D.A. and Costello, C. (2008) Marine reserve effects on fishery profit. Ecology Letters 11, 370379.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, I.D. and Polunin, N.V.C. (2000) Differences between protected and unprotected reefs of the western Caribbean in attributes preferred by dive tourists. Environmental Conservation 27, 382391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zabala, M., Garcia-Rubies, A., Louisy, P. and Sala, E. (1997a) Spawning behaviour of the Mediterranean dusky grouper Epinephelus marginatus (Lowe, 1834) (Pisces, Serranidae) in the Medes Islands Marine Reserve (NW Mediterranean; Spain). Scientia Marina 61, 6577.Google Scholar
Zabala, M., Louisy, P., Garcia-Rubies, A. and Garcia, V. (1997b) Socio-behavioural context of reproduction in the Mediterranean dusky grouper Epinephelus marginatus (Lowe, 1834) (Pisces, Serranidae) in the Medes Islands Marine Reserve (NW Mediterranean, Spain). Scientia Marina 61, 7998.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Sahyoun Supplementary Material

Tables

Download Sahyoun Supplementary Material(File)
File 61.5 KB
Supplementary material: Image

Sahyoun Supplementary Material

Figure

Download Sahyoun Supplementary Material(Image)
Image 3.8 MB