After 15 years, no evidence for trophic cascades in marine protected areas.

ABSTRACT: In marine ecosystems, fishing often targets predators, which can drive direct and indirect effects on entire food webs. Marine reserves can induce trophic cascades by increasing predator density and body size, thereby increasing predation pressure on populations of herbivores, such as sea urchins. In California's northern Channel Islands, two species of sea urchins are abundant: the red urchin Mesocentrotus franciscanus, which is targeted by an economically valuable fishery, and the virtually unfished purple urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. We hypothesized that urchin populations inside marine reserves would be depressed by higher predation, but that red urchins would be less affected due to fishing outside reserves. Instead, our analyses revealed that purple urchin popu

SUBMITTER: Malakhoff KD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7935012 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature