Data from: Recovery linked to life history of sessile epifauna following exclusion of towed mobile fishing gear

1. The use of reserves as conservation tools is widespread. However,
evaluating the effectiveness of reserve implementation for long-lived
species has been problematic as it requires sampling programmes over long
time scales that are appropriate to species’ longevity and recovery rates.
In the sea, towed bottom fishing gears alter the biodiversity and
ecosystem services provided by benthic communities and habitats. Marine
reserves have been used to manage these impacts but our understanding of
the drivers of their effectiveness for the conservation of temperate reefs
is incomplete. 2. We examined the effectiveness of marine reserves for
recovery of temperate reef fauna in relation to their life history. We
used an underwater video to sample six species with different life
histories across 60 sites that varied in the duration of protection from
towed mobile fishing gear at 0, 1, 8 and 10 years. 3. Species with a high
dispersal potential and less habitat specific requirements such as soft
corals and king scallops recovered to close to their carrying capacity in
<3 years. In contrast, the longer-lived Ross coral and pink seafans
increased in abundance but had not fully recovered; with their projected
recovery time being 17 to 20 years. 4. Ongoing recovery was evident for
long-lived species as their mean body -size increased significantly across
all treatments, whereas shorter-lived species such as queen scallops did
not change in size and were assumed to have fully recovered. 5. This study
shows that the recovery rates of biota depend on life history factors,
such as larval longevity and dispersal potential. Recovery for species
that had low dispersal potential and specific habitat requirements was
slow and could take >20 years. This suggests activities such as
bottom trawling or dredging should be avoided where such species occur if
their conservation is an objective. In contrast, species with high
dispersal potential and less habitat specific requirements had shorter
recovery timescales of ~2-3 years and would be more amenable to managed
trawl frequencies in areas where activities such as fishing occur.