Restricted grouper reproductive migrations support community-based management

Conservation commonly requires trade-offs between social and ecological goals. For tropical small-scale fisheries, spatial scales of socially appropriate management are generally small—the median no-take locally managed marine area (LMMA) area throughout the Pacific is less than 1 km2. This is of particular concern for large coral reef fishes, such as many species of grouper, which migrate to aggregations to spawn. Current data suggest that the catchment areas (i.e. total area from which individuals are drawn) of such aggregations are at spatial scales that preclude effective community-based management with no-take LMMAs. We used acoustic telemetry and tag-returns to examine reproductive migrations and catchment areas of the grouper Epinephelus fuscoguttatus at a spawning aggregation in Papua New Guinea. Protection of the resultant catchment area of approximately 16 km2 using a no-take LMMA is socially untenable here and throughout much of the Pacific region. However, we found that spaw...

自然资源保护工作通常需要在社会与生态目标之间进行权衡。针对热带小型渔业，适配社会需求的管理空间尺度普遍较小——整个太平洋区域内的禁捕型本地管理海洋区（locally managed marine area, LMMA）中位面积不足1平方千米。这一问题对大型珊瑚礁鱼类尤为凸显，例如诸多石斑鱼（grouper）物种，它们会洄游至集群区域产卵。现有研究数据表明，此类产卵集群的种群汇区（即个体来源的总区域）的空间尺度，令采用禁捕型本地管理海洋区开展高效社区化管理难以实现。我们借助声学遥测（acoustic telemetry）与标记回收技术，针对巴布亚新几内亚一处产卵集群中的褐点石斑鱼（Epinephelus fuscoguttatus）展开了生殖洄游与种群汇区相关研究。在此区域乃至太平洋多数区域，通过禁捕型本地管理海洋区保护约16平方千米的目标种群汇区，在社会层面均不具备可行性。然而，我们的研究发现……