A spatiotemporal comparison of length-at-age in the coral reef fish Acanthurus nigrofuscus between marine reserves and fished reefs.

ABSTRACT: Quantitative assessments of the capacity of marine reserves to restore historical fish body-size distributions require extensive repeated sampling to map the phenotypic responses of target populations to protection. However, the "no take" status of marine reserves oftentimes precludes repeated sampling within their borders and, as a result, our current understanding of the capacity of marine reserves to restore historical body-size distributions remains almost entirely reliant on independent, static visual surveys. To overcome this challenge, we promote the application of a traditional fisheries tool known as a "back-calculation", which allows for the estimation of fish body lengths from otolith annuli distances. This practical application was pursued in this study, using data collected in

SUBMITTER: Cramer MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7521754 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature