Assessing connectivity across the California marine protected area network

This evaluation asks two overarching questions. Question 1 (Q1) asks “What are the population consequences of ecological connectivity across the MPA network?” This question considers connectivity in the ecological sense, as the process of demographic replacement in metapopulations. For the MPA network to be effective, the replacement capacity and resulting population persistence should be enhanced by the presence of the MPAs. Question 2 (Q2) asks "How does network design, habitat availability, and particle transport over different timescales contribute to environmental connectivity across the network?" This question focuses solely on the environmental factors affecting patterns of propagule abundance and transport across the network for several different habitats and propagule durations, and is not linked to particular species. Overall, these analyses provide strong evidence that California’s planning process created a network of ecologically connected MPAs and that this connectivity is enhancing the long-term resilience and persistence of the species examined in this study and those that occupy many of the habitats targeted for protection.