Functional dynamics of coral reef fish in marine protected areas

Coral reefs are diverse ecosystems that provide services to millions of people around the world. However, these ecosystems are rapidly transforming in the age of the Anthropocene. In this thesis, I explore how a trait-based approach can be used as a methodological tool to understand and conserve coral reef ecosystems through prioritising ecosystem functioning. In Chapter 1, I systematically review the literature on coral reef fish traits through a response-and-effect framework. I identify where there is evidence linking traits to disturbances, management actions, and ecosystem processes, and where there are gaps in the literature. In Chapter 2, I use traits identified through my review of the literature to look at functional changes over time in no-take marine reserves in Kenya. I demonstrate that over 44 years of protection, both abundance and biomass increase, and the functional trait space of the fish communities within the reserves is novel and not stabilising. In Chapter 3, I expand on my work from Chapter 2, where I used surveys conducted by the same individual over multiple decades, to explore more participatory ways to monitor fish communities and biomass trends across a proposed Transboundary Conservation Area between Kenya and Tanzania. I find that fish traps can be used as a participatory monitoring tool to detect trends across a gradient of protection from fishing, and video transects can provide relatively precise biomass estimates and serve as an opportunity for collective learning. Finally, in Chapter 4, I shift to looking at traits on a global scale and apply phylogenetic models to predict the fecundity of 831 coral reef fish species. I then look at global drivers of site-level fecundity and demonstrate the positive impact of marine protection on the fecundity of important fisheries species. Overall, this thesis adds to a necessary diversity of tools needed to conserve coral reef functioning in the Anthropocene

Getting the full picture:Assessing the complementarity of citizen science and agency monitoring data

While the role of citizen science in engaging the public and providing large-scale datasets has been demonstrated, the nature of and potential for this science to supplement environmental monitoring efforts by government agencies has not yet been fully explored. To this end, the present study investigates the complementarity of a citizen science programme to agency monitoring of water quality. The Environment Agency (EA) is the governmental public body responsible for, among other duties, managing and monitoring water quality and water resources in England. FreshWater Watch (FWW) is a global citizen science project that supports community monitoring of freshwater quality. FWW and EA data were assessed for their spatio-temporal complementarity by comparing the geographical and seasonal coverage of nitrate (N-NO3) sampling across the River Thames catchment by the respective campaigns between spring 2013 and winter 2015. The analysis reveals that FWW citizen science-collected data complements EA data by filling in both gaps in the spatial and temporal coverage as well as gaps in waterbody type and size. In addition, partial spatio-temporal overlap in sampling efforts by the two actors is discovered, but EA sampling is found to be more consistent than FWW sampling. Statistical analyses indicate that regardless of broader geographical overlap in sampling effort, FWW sampling sites are associated with a lower stream order and water bodies of smaller surface areas than EA sampling sites. FWW also samples more still-water body sites than the EA. As a possible result of such differences in sampling tendencies, nitrate concentrations, a measure of water quality, are lower for FWW sites than EA sites. These findings strongly indicate that citizen science has clear potential to complement agency monitoring efforts by generating information on freshwater ecosystems that would otherwise be under reported

Governance analysis of a community managed small-scale crab fishery in Madagascar:novel use of an empirical framework

The Marine Protected Area Governance (MPAG) framework was developed to offer a structured, empirical approach for analysing governance and has been applied to marine protected areas (MPAs) around the world. This study sees the novel application of the MPAG framework to a small-scale mangrove crab fishery in northwest Madagascar. The country typifies developing country environmental governance challenges, due to its poverty, political instability and lack of state capacity, with bottom-up approaches often identified as a potential solution. In this context, small-scale fisheries (SSF) play a vital role in food security and poverty alleviation but are vulnerable to over-exploitation. The case study examines community-based management, including the role of three nascent fishing association managing portions of the fishery, within a mangrove ecosystem. Despite issues with underrepresentation of fishers in local resource management organizations that have partial responsibility for the mangrove habitats, some management measures and incentives have been applied, including the replantation of mangroves and fishery-wide gear restrictions. However, the analysis highlights market forces and migration are drivers with negative synergistic effects that cannot be controlled by bottom-up management. Incentives identified as needed or in need or strengthening require the support of external actors, the state, industry and or NGO(s). Thus, governance approaches should seek integration and move away from polarised solutions (top-down vs- bottom-up). As shown by other MPAG case studies, effective governance is dependent on achieving ‘resilience through diversity’, in terms of the diversity of both the actors and the incentives they are able to collectively employ

The percentage of still-water sites (ponds, lakes, wetlands) sampled by the Environment Agency (EA) (N = 25) and Freshwater Watch (FWW) (N = 156) citizen scientists with areas less than 8 ha and greater than 8 ha.

<p>EA sites are represented by a light grey colour and FWW sites are represented by a dark grey colour.</p

Overlap in grid cells sampled by the EA and FWW, where complete overlap (red) represents grid cells where both EA and FWW samples are represented by all the seasons, partial overlap (yellow) represents grid cells where EA and FWW are represented by samples collected in some of the same seasons, and no overlap (blue) represents grid cells where none of the same seasons are represented by the two datasets.

<p>Grid-cells where spatiotemporal gaps are filled by FWW samples (areas where FWW citizen scientists collected samples for all the seasons, but the EA did not) are represented by a black outline. The time period investigated is between spring 2013 and winter 2015.</p

Thames basin divided into a 5km hexagon grids.

<p>The grid cells are coloured according to the number of seasons (0 = blue to all 4 = red) represented by nitrate samples shown as black dots collected by a) the EA and b) the FWW between spring 2013 and winter 2015.</p

Stacked bar-chart showing the percentage of sites (still-water and running-water) with an average nitrate value within each nitrate category, where N = 2 for EA still-water sites with nitrate samples, N = 613 for EA running-water sites with nitrate samples, N = 156 for FWW still-water sites with nitrate samples, and N = 714 for FWW running-water sites with nitrate samples.

<p>EA sites are represented by a light grey colour and FWW sites are represented by a dark grey colour.</p

Thames catchment fitted with 5km hexagonal grid.

<p>Thames catchment fitted with 5km hexagonal grid.</p