Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
Many countries are legally obliged to embrace ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management. Reductions in bycatch and physical habitat damage are now commonplace, but mitigating more sophisticated impacts associated with the ecological functions of target fisheries species are in their infancy. Here we model the impacts of a parrotfish fishery on the future state and resilience of Caribbean coral reefs, enabling us to view the tradeoff between harvest and ecosystem health. We find that the implementation of a simple and enforceable size restriction of >30 cm provides a win:win outcome in the short term, delivering both ecological and fisheries benefits and leading to increased yield and greater coral recovery rate for a given harvest rate. However, maintaining resilient coral reefs even until 2030 requires the addition of harvest limitations (<10% of virgin fishable biomass) to cope with a changing climate and induced coral disturbances, even in reefs that are relatively healthy today. Managing parrotfish is not a panacea for protecting coral reefs but can play a role in sustaining the health of reefs and high-quality habitat for reef fisheries.
http://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01369752

hal-01369752
http://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01369752
DOI : 10.1073/pnas.1601529113

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : International audience
Coral bleaching events threaten coral reef habitats globally and cause severe declines of local biodiversity and productivity.Related to high sea surface temperatures (SST), bleaching events are expected to increase as a consequenceof future global warming. However, response to climate change is still uncertain as future low-latitude climatic conditionshave no present-day analogue. Sea surface temperatures during the Eocene epoch were warmer than forecastedchanges for the coming century, and distributions of corals during the Eocene may help to inform models forecastingthe future of coral reefs. We coupled contemporary and Eocene coral occurrences with information on their respectiveclimatic conditions to model the thermal niche of coral reefs and its potential response to projected climate change.We found that under the RCP8.5 climate change scenario, the global suitability for coral reefs may increase up to 16%by 2100, mostly due to improved suitability of higher latitudes. In contrast, in its current range, coral reef suitabilitymay decrease up to 46% by 2100. Reduction in thermal suitability will be most severe in biodiversity hotspots, especiallyin the Indo-Australian Archipelago. Our results suggest that many contemporary hotspots for coral reefs,including those that have been refugia in the past, spatially mismatch with future suitable areas for coral reefs posingchallenges to conservation actions under climate change.
ISSN: 1354-1013

hal-01145464
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01145464
DOI : 10.1111/gcb.12868

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : International audience
Exposure to disturbance is rarely considered in marine protected area planning. Typically, representing and replicating the habitat types present within protected areas is used to spread the risk of protecting frequently disturbed sites. This was the approach used during the 2004 re-zoning of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) via the Representative Areas Program. Over 10 years later, we examine whether the risk was spread by mapping exposure of coral reefs in the GBRMP to four disturbances that cause coral mortality: bleaching, tropical cyclones, crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, and freshwater inundation. Our objectives were to: (1) assess whether no-take areas include a range of disturbance regimes, and (2) identify coral reef areas with lower relative exposure. At least 13% and an average of 31% of reef locations in each of 11 exposure classes are included within no-take areas. A greater proportion of low-exposure areas are within no-take areas than high-exposure areas (34.2% vs. 28.3%). The results demonstrate the value of risk spreading when exposure data are not available while also showing that regularly assessing exposure increases capacity for adaptive, resilience-based reef management.
ISSN: 1755-263X

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
hal-01225201
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01225201
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01225201/document
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01225201/file/Maynard_et_al-2015-Conservation_Letters.pdf
DOI : 10.1111/conl.12198

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier Masson
Résumé : In southern Corsica, three successive Upper Burdigalian coral reef episodes (R1, R2 subdivided into R2A and R2B subunits, and R3) developed within the Cala di Labra Formation. Tabular corals dominated under high water energy and siliciclastic input conditions. The R1 reefs show the highest coral diversity with 16 species described for the first time. A coral impoverishment was recorded in the R2 and R3 reefal episodes. The reefs did not reach a climax growth stage, except the R1 ones. Analogous to North Sardinian reefs, they reflect local vanishing conditions in the Corsican-Sardinian block through Upper Burdigalian because of constant siliciclastic inputs and deepening of the Bonifacio straight.
ISSN: 1631-0713

hal-01054332
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01054332
DOI : 10.1016/j.crte.2014.02.003

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
Despite the importance of invertebrate resources for Pacific coral reef islands, few studies have specifically addressed the effects of harvesting on invertebrate assemblages including targeted and non-targeted species. The impacts of recreational harvesting on reef and seagrass invertebrate assemblages in New Caledonia (South Pacific) are investigated by comparing communities in non-MPA and MPA areas. Sampling was done using a standard core method on seagrasses and by visual survey along belt transects on reefs. A total of 371 species were recorded, 174 on seagrasses and 254 on reefs, with 57 common species. Reef and seagrass invertebrate communities were very different in MPA and non-MPA areas. On both habitats, MPAs were identified as undisturbed areas while non-MPAs were defined as moderately disturbed with a predominance of small-sized and opportunistic species. Fishing not only affects target species but also non-target species through secondary effects. These results highlight the necessity of a community based approach for the conservation of resources in tropical poorly known environments.
ISSN: 0165-7836

hal-01311486
http://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01311486
http://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01311486/document
http://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01311486/file/Harvesting%20effects%20on%20tropical%20invertebrate%20assemblages%20in%20New_hal.pdf
DOI : 10.1016/j.fishres.2015.02.001

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Laboratoire Arago
Résumé : International audience
As it is unlikely that successful settlement is solely a matter of chance (i.e. tofind a suitable habitat), one of the greatest challenges facing the fish larvae is how to locate therelatively rare patches of coral reef habitat on which they settle and ultimately reside as adults.The answer must lie partly in the sensory modalities of fishes at settlement. Habitat selection isonly possible if fish larvae could detect some environmental cues to select a suitable reef habitatat settlement. The present review aims at providing the latest works dealing with informationperception in coral reef fish larvae at settlement. Two decades ago, it was generally assumedthat larval behaviors and sensory abilities at settlement were considered too feeble to significantlyaffect dispersal outcomes. Several recent studies showed that recognition of suitable reefhabitats by fish larvae at settlement is based on a combination of visual, chemical and acousticcues. The first part of our review shows the main advances in the knowledge of visual, chemicaland acoustic cues used by fish larvae to detect an island, a reef, a micro-habitat, a conspecific orsome predators. The second part of our review deals with the effect of imprinting and/or innatecapabilities. The third part focuses on the different cues used at different scales and underlinessome contradictory results about the distance of transmission and detection of chemical andacoustic cues in coral reefs. Finally, as global and regional environmental changes have stressedcoral reefs to such an extent that they are either destroyed or in decline, the fourth part presentsthe effects of both anthropogenic and environmental stressors on information perception andresponse capacities in coral reef fish larvae. If polluted seawater disrupts the larval abilities tofind a suitable reef habitat, fish larvae may spend more time in the planktonic environment,resulting in increased energetic costs and predation risk, and consequently a lower larval settlement.We hypothesise that as the stability of fish communities is dependent, in part, on the stabilityof social interactions, the disruption of “larvae-habitat relationships” can have major consequencesfor larval settlement into adult population with further repercussions for the ecosystemas a whole. Overall, larval settlement of coral reef fish is an excellent example of the complexityof interactions between an organism and its environment as without perceiving environmentalcues, fish larva would have very little chance of selecting a suitable reef habitat. Moreover,understanding the relationship between reef state and settlement potential will allow managementplanning for the maintenance of coral reefs that are increasingly degraded.
ISSN: 0240-8759

hal-01191776
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01191776

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Nature Publishing Group
Résumé : International audience
Different marine habitats are characterised by different soundscapes. How or which differences may be representative of the habitat characteristics and/or community structure remains however to be explored. A growing project in passive acoustics is to find a way to use soundscapes to have information on the habitat and on its changes. In this study we have successfully tested the potential of two acoustic indices, i.e. the average sound pressure level and the acoustic complexity index based on the frequency spectrum. Inside and outside marine protected areas of Moorea Island (French Polynesia), sound pressure level was positively correlated with the characteristics of the substratum and acoustic complexity was positively correlated with fish diversity. It clearly shows soundscape can be used to evaluate the acoustic features of marine protected areas, which presented a significantly higher ambient sound pressure level and were more acoustically complex than non-protected areas. This study further emphasizes the importance of acoustics as a tool in the monitoring of marine environments and in the elaboration and management of future conservation plans. Coral reef ecosystems are among the most biologically diverse and complex marine ecosystems worldwide. In addition to their biological and ecological importance, coral reefs support major economic and physical functions (e.g. food production, tourism, biotechnology development and coastal protection) that are essential for many countries 1. Unfortunately, coral reefs are severely threatened: 20% of coral reefs can no longer be defined as such, another 25% are currently endangered and another 25% will be endangered by 2050 2. The frequency and severity of natural perturbations (e.g. cyclone, outbreaks of predators, particularly the crown-of-thorns starfish [COTS] Acanthaster planci) and anthropogenic perturbations (e.g. ocean acidification, pesticides, rising seawater temperatures) on coral reefs have greatly increased worldwide in the last three decades, and, as a consequence, reef communities (fish, coral and benthic invertebrates) have suffered unprecedented levels of decline 3,4
ISSN: 2045-2322

hal-01370610
https://hal-uvsq.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01370610
https://hal-uvsq.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01370610/document
https://hal-uvsq.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01370610/file/2016%20Sci.Rep.pdf
DOI : 10.1038/srep33326

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Public Library of Science
Résumé : International audience
Understanding how communities respond to natural disturbances is fundamental to assess the mechanisms of ecosystem resistance and resilience. However, ecosystem responses to natural disturbances are rarely monitored both through space and time, while the factors promoting ecosystem stability act at various temporal and spatial scales. Hence, assessing both the spatial and temporal variations in species composition is important to comprehensively explore the effects of natural disturbances. Here, we suggest a framework to better scrutinize the mechanisms underlying community responses to disturbances through both time and space. Our analytical approach is based on beta diversity decomposition into two components, replacement and biomass difference. We illustrate this approach using a 9-year monitoring of coral reef fish communities off Moorea Island (French Polynesia), which encompassed two severe natural disturbances: a crown-of-thorns starfish outbreak and a hurricane. These disturbances triggered a fast logistic decline in coral cover, which suffered a 90% decrease on all reefs. However, we found that the coral reef fish composition remained largely stable through time and space whereas compensatory changes in bio-mass among species were responsible for most of the temporal fluctuations, as outlined by the overall high contribution of the replacement component to total beta diversity. This suggests that, despite the severity of the two disturbances, fish communities exhibited high resistance and the ability to reorganize their compositions to maintain the same level of total community biomass as before the disturbances. We further investigated the spatial congruence of this pattern and showed that temporal dynamics involved different species across sites; yet, herbivores controlling the proliferation of algae that compete with coral communities were consistently favored. These results suggest that compensatory changes in bio-mass among species and spatial heterogeneity in species responses can provide further
ISSN: 1932-6203

hal-01212344
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01212344
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01212344/document
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01212344/file/journal.pone.0138696.pdf
DOI : 10.1371/journal.pone.0138696

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Springer Verlag
Résumé : International audience
Coral reefs are increasingly being altered by a myriad of anthropogenic activities and natural disturbances. Long-term studies offer unique opportunities to understand how multiple and recurrent disturbances can influence coral reef resilience and long-term dynamics. While the long-term dynamics of coral assemblages have been extensively documented, the long-term dynamics of coral reef fish assemblages have received less attention. Here, we describe the changes in fish assemblages on Tiahura reef, Moorea, from 1979 to 2011. During this 33-yr period, Tiahura was exposed to multiple disturbances (crown-of-thorns seastar outbreaks and cyclones) that caused recurrent declines and recoveries of coral cover and changes in the dominant coral genera. These shifts in coral composition were associated with long-term cascading effects on fish assemblages. The composition and trophic structure of fish assemblages continuously shifted without returning to their initial composition, whereas fish species richness remained stable, albeit with a small increase over time. We detected nonlinear responses of fish density when corals were most degraded. When coral cover dropped below 10 % following a severe crown-of-thorns sea star outbreak, the density of most fish trophic groups sharply decreased. Our study shows that historical contingency may potentially be an important but largely underestimated factor explaining the contemporary structure of reef fish assemblages and suggests that temporal stability in their structure and function should not necessarily be the target of management strategies that aim at increasing or maintaining coral reef resilience.
ISSN: 0722-4028

hal-01282725
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01282725
DOI : 10.1007/s00338-015-1371-2

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD MDPI
Résumé : International audience
Marine ecosystems cover about 70% of the planet surface and are still an underexploited source of useful metabolites. Among microbes, filamentous fungi are captivating organisms used for the production of many chemical classes of secondary metabolites bound to be used in various fields of industrial application. The present study was focused on the collection, isolation, screening and genotyping of pigmented filamentous fungi isolated from tropical marine environments around La Réunion Island, Indian Ocean. About 150 micromycetes were revived and isolated from 14 marine samples (sediments, living corals, coral rubble, sea water and hard substrates) collected in four different locations. Forty-two colored fungal isolates belonging to 16 families, 25 genera and 31 species were further studied depending on their ability to produce pigments and thus subjected to molecular identification. From gene sequence analysis, the most frequently identified colored fungi belong to the widespread Penicillium, Talaromyces and Aspergillus genera in the family Trichocomaceae (11 species), then followed by the family Hypocreaceae (three species). This study demonstrates that marine biotopes in La Réunion Island, Indian Ocean, from coral reefs to underwater slopes of this volcanic island, shelter numerous species of micromycetes, from common or uncommon genera. This unstudied biodiversity comes along with the ability for some fungal marine inhabitants, to produce a range of pigments and hues.
ISSN: 2309-608X

hal-01657071
http://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01657071
http://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01657071/document
http://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01657071/file/14-%20Fouillaud%20et%20al.%2C%20J.%20of%20Fungi%202017.pdf
DOI : 10.3390/jof3030036

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD PeerJ
Résumé : International audience
Acoustic recording has been recognized as a valuable tool for non-intrusive monitoring of the marine environment, complementing traditional visual surveys. Acoustic surveys conducted on coral ecosystems have so far been restricted to barrier reefs and to shallow depths (10–30 m). Since they may provide refuge for coral reef organisms, the monitoring of outer reef slopes and describing of the soundscapes of deeper environment could provide insights into the characteristics of different biotopes of coral ecosystems. In this study, the acoustic features of four different habitats, with different topographies and substrates, located at different depths from 10 to 100 m, were recorded during daytime on the outer reef slope of the north Coast of Moorea Island (French Polynesia). Barrier reefs appeared to be the noisiest habitats whereas the average sound levels at other habitats decreased with their distance from the reef and with increasing depth. However, sound levels were higher than expected by propagation models, supporting that these habitats possess their own sound sources. While reef sounds are known to attract marine larvae, sounds from deeper habitats may then also have a non-negligible attractive potential, coming into play before the reef itself.
ISSN: 2167-8359

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
hal-01654685
http://hal.upmc.fr/hal-01654685
http://hal.upmc.fr/hal-01654685/document
http://hal.upmc.fr/hal-01654685/file/peerj-4019.pdf
DOI : 10.7717/peerj.4019

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Springer Verlag (Germany)
Résumé : International audience
Mass bleaching events resulting in coral mortality are among the greatest threats to coral reefs, and are projected to increase in frequency and intensity with global warming. Achieving a better understanding of the consistency of the response of coral assemblages to thermal stress, both spatially and temporally, is essential to determine which reefs are more able to tolerate climate change. We compared variations in spatial and taxonomic patterns between two bleaching events at the scale of an island (Moorea Island, French Polynesia). Despite similar thermal stress and light conditions, bleaching intensity was significantly lower in 2007 (approximately 37 % of colonies showed signs of bleaching) than in 2002, when 55 % of the colonies bleached. Variations in the spatial patterns of bleaching intensity were consistent between the two events. Among nine sampling stations at three locations and three depths, the stations at which the bleaching response was lowest in 2002 were those that showed the lowest levels of bleaching in 2007. The taxonomic patterns of susceptibility to bleaching were also consistent between the two events. These findings have important implications for conservation because they indicate that corals are capable of acclimatization and/or adaptation and that, even at small spatial scales, some areas are consistently more susceptible to bleaching than others.
ISSN: 0167-6369

hal-00905944
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00905944
DOI : 10.1007/s10661-012-2923-3

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Nature Publishing Group
Résumé : International audience
Losses of corals worldwide emphasize the need to understand what drives reef decline. Stressors such as overfishing and nutrient pollution may reduce resilience of coral reefs by increasing coral–algal competition and reducing coral recruitment, growth and survivorship. Such effects may themselves develop via several mechanisms, including disruption of coral microbiomes. Here we report the results of a 3-year field experiment simulating overfishing and nutrient pollution. These stressors increase turf and macroalgal cover, destabilizing microbiomes, elevating putative pathogen loads, increasing disease more than twofold and increasing mortality up to eightfold. Above-average temperatures exacerbate these effects, further disrupting microbiomes of unhealthy corals and concentrating 80% of mortality in the warmest seasons. Surprisingly, nutrients also increase bacterial opportunism and mortality in corals bitten by parrotfish, turning normal trophic interactions deadly for corals. Thus, overfishing and nutrient pollution impact reefs down to microbial scales, killing corals by sensitizing them to predation, above-average temperatures and bacterial opportunism.
ISSN: 2041-1723

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
hal-01340547
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01340547
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01340547/document
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01340547/file/ncomms11833.pdf
DOI : 10.1038/ncomms11833

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD PeerJ
Résumé : International audience
Understanding the role of predators in food webs can be challenging in highly diverse predator/prey systems composed of small cryptic species. DNA based dietary analysis can supplement predator removal experiments and provide high resolution for prey identification. Here we use a metabarcoding approach to provide initial insights into the diet and functional role of coral-dwelling predatory fish feeding on small invertebrates. Fish were collected in Moorea (French Polynesia) where the BIOCODE project has generated DNA barcodes for numerous coral associated invertebrate species. Pyrosequencing data revealed a total of 292 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTU) in the gut contents of the arc-eye hawkfish (Paracirrhites arcatus), the flame hawkfish (Neocirrhites armatus) and the coral croucher (Caracanthus maculatus). One hundred forty-nine (51%) of them had species-level matches in reference libraries (>98% similarity) while 76 additional OTUs (26%) could be identified to higher taxonomic levels. Decapods that have a mutualistic relationship with Pocillopora and are typically dominant among coral branches, represent a minor contribution of the predators' diets. Instead, predators mainly consumed transient species including pelagic taxa such as copepods, chaetognaths and siphonophores suggesting non random feeding behavior. We also identified prey species known to have direct negative interactions with stony corals, such as Hapalocarcinus sp, a gall crab considered a coral parasite, as well as species of vermetid snails known for their deleterious effects on coral growth. Pocillopora DNA accounted for 20.8% and 20.1% of total number of sequences in the guts of the flame hawkfish and coral croucher but it was not detected in the guts of the arc-eye hawkfish. Comparison of diets among the three fishes demonstrates remarkable partitioning with nearly 80% of prey items consumed by only one predator. Overall, the taxonomic resolution provided by the metabarcoding approach highlights a highly complex interaction web and demonstrates that levels of trophic partitioning among coral reef fishes have likely been underestimated. Therefore, we strongly encourage further empirical approaches to dietary studies prior to making assumptions of trophic equivalency in food web reconstruction. How to cite this article Leray et al. (2015), Metabarcoding dietary analysis of coral dwelling predatory fish demonstrates the minor contribution of coral mutualists to their highly partitioned, generalist diet. PeerJ 3:e1047
ISSN: 2167-8359

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
hal-01174184
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01174184
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01174184/document
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01174184/file/peerj-1047.pdf
DOI : 10.7717/peerj.1047

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Nature Publishing Group
Résumé : International audience
Increasingly frequent severe coral bleaching is among the greatest threats to coral reefs posed by climate change. Global climate models (GCMs) project great spatial variation in the timing of annual severe bleaching (ASB) conditions; a point at which reefs are certain to change and recovery will be limited. However, previous model-resolution projections (~1 × 1°) are too coarse to inform conservation planning. To meet the need for higher-resolution projections, we generated statistically downscaled projections (4-km resolution) for all coral reefs; these projections reveal high local-scale variation in ASB. Timing of ASB varies >10 years in 71 of the 87 countries and territories with >500 km 2 of reef area. Emissions scenario RCP4.5 represents lower emissions mid-century than will eventuate if pledges made following the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21) become reality. These pledges do little to provide reefs with more time to adapt and acclimate prior to severe bleaching conditions occurring annually. RCP4.5 adds 11 years to the global average ASB timing when compared to RCP8.5; however, >75% of reefs still experience ASB before 2070 under RCP4.5. Coral reef futures clearly vary greatly among and within countries, indicating the projections warrant consideration in most reef areas during conservation and management planning.
ISSN: 2045-2322

hal-01441969
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01441969
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01441969/document
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01441969/file/local%20scale.pdf
DOI : 10.1038/srep39666

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : International audience
Well-designed and effectively managed networks of marine reserves can be effective tools for both fisheries management and biodiversity conservation. Connectivity, the demographic linking of local populations through the dispersal of individuals as larvae, juveniles or adults, is a key ecological factor to consider in marine reserve design, since it has important implications for the persistence of metapopulations and their recovery from disturbance. For marine reserves to protect biodiversity and enhance populations of species in fished areas, they must be able to sustain focal species (particularly fishery species) within their boundaries, and be spaced such that they can function as mutually replenishing networks whilst providing recruitment subsidies to fished areas. Thus the configuration (size, spacing and location) of individual reserves within a network should be informed by larval dispersal and movement patterns of the species for which protection is required. In the past, empirical data regarding larval dispersal and movement patterns of adults and juveniles of many tropical marine species have been unavailable or inaccessible to practitioners responsible for marine reserve design. Recent empirical studies using new technologies have also provided fresh insights into movement patterns of many species and redefined our understanding of connectivity among populations through larval dispersal. Our review of movement patterns of 34 families (210 species) of coral reef fishes demonstrates that movement patterns (home ranges, ontogenetic shifts and spawning migrations) vary among and within species, and are influenced by a range of factors (e.g. size, sex, behaviour, density, habitat characteristics, season, tide and time of day). Some species move <0.1–0.5 km (e.g. damselfishes, butterflyfishes and angelfishes), <0.5–3 km (e.g. most parrotfishes, goatfishes and surgeonfishes) or 3–10 km (e.g. large parrotfishes and wrasses), while others move tens to hundreds (e.g. some groupers, emperors, snappers and jacks) or thousands of kilometres (e.g. some sharks and tuna). Larval dispersal distances tend to be <5–15 km, and self-recruitment is common. Synthesising this information allows us, for the first time, to provide species, specific advice on the size, spacing and location of marine reserves in tropical marine ecosystems to maximise benefits for conservation and fisheries management for a range of taxa. We recommend that: (i) marine reserves should be more than twice the size of the home range of focal species (in all directions), thus marine reserves of various sizes will be required depending on which species require protection, how far they move, and if other effective protection is in place outside reserves; (ii) reserve spacing should be <15 km, with smaller reserves spaced more closely; and (iii) marine reserves should include habitats that are critical to the life history of focal species (e.g. home ranges, nursery grounds, migration corridors and spawning aggregations), and be located to accommodate movement patterns among these. We also provide practical advice for practitioners on how to use this information to design, evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of marine reserve networks within broader ecological, socioeconomic and management contexts.
ISSN: 1464-7931

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/
hal-01334353
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01334353
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01334353/document
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01334353/file/Green_et_al-2015-Biological_Reviews.pdf
DOI : 10.1111/brv.12155

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
Coral reef resource systems are complex adaptive social-ecological systems providing vital and valuableecosystem services for human societies such as food provision, coastal protection and recreational activities.Their sustainability is questioned in many places around the world as they experience combined effects ofmultiple chronic anthropogenic and natural drivers at local to global scales. From a management perspective,there is a crucial need to understand how the impact of these drivers cascade through the social-ecologicalsystem components. This study develops a transdisciplinary and participatory approach to investigating thesocial-ecological dynamics of a Polynesian coral reef coastal system. A preliminary conceptual model using theDriver-Pressure-State-Impact (DPSI) framework is first being built through participatory modeling workshops.Then, pressure-state relationships are assessed with the help of empirical datasets as a first step towards thevalidation of the DPSI model. Results shows striking social-ecological interactions with different patterns in thelagoon and in the fore reef. Local management should be: (1) less resource-focused to account more specificallyto the existing typology of actors; (2) more spatially-explicit to better distinguish management objectives andactions for the lagoon and the fore reef sub-systems; and (3) more coordinated with terrestrial agencies for acoherent land-sea connection and integration that would both (i) account for existing land-sea interactions and(ii) better reflect the Polynesian cultural heritage that considers nature from ridge to reef as a whole. Suchconceptual models of social-ecological systems are a useful tool to build exploratory scenarios to ultimatelysupport planning decision-making processes.
ISSN: 0308-597X

hal-01491968
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01491968
DOI : 10.1016/j.marpol.2017.01.014

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD PeerJ
Résumé : International audience
Coral reefs are in decline across the globe as a result of overexploitation, pollution, disease and, more recently, climate change. The impacts of changes in coral cover on associated fish communities can be difficult to predict because of the uneven dependence of reef fish species on corals for food, shelter or the three-dimensional structure they provide. We compared live coral cover, reef fish community metrics, and their associations in two surveys of the lagoon of the remote atoll of Mataiva (French Polynesia) carried out 31 years apart. In contrast to the general pattern of decreasing coral cover reported for many parts of the Indo-Pacific region, live coral cover increased 6–7 fold at Mataiva between 1981 and 2012, and fish density nearly doubled. The stable overall reef fish species richness belied a significant shift in community structure. There was little overlap in community composition across years, and fish assemblages in 2012 were more homogeneous in composition than they were in 1981. Changes in species abundance were not clearly related to species-specific reliance on corals. The strong positive relationships between live coral cover and fish diversity and abundance noted in 1981, when coral cover rarely exceeded 10%, were no longer present in 2012, when coral cover rarely fell below this value. The most parsimonious explanation for these contrasting relationships is that, over the combined range of coral cover observed in the 1981 and 2012 snapshots, there is a rapidly asymptotic relationship between coral and fish. Our results, and other data from the south and west Pacific, suggest that fish diversity and abundance might accumulate rapidly up to a threshold of approximately 10% live coral cover. Such a relationship would have implications for our expectations of resistance and recovery of reef fish communities facing an increasingly severe regime of coral reef disturbances.
ISSN: 2167-8359

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
hal-01135589
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01135589
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01135589/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01135589/file/2015_02_26_more_coral_more_fish.pdf
DOI : 10.7717/peerj.745

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Public Library of Science
Résumé : International audience
Regeneration of artificially induced lesions was monitored in nubbins of the branching coral Acropora muricata at two reef-flat sites representing contrasting environments at Réunion Island (21u079S, 55u329E). Growth of these injured nubbins was examined in parallel, and compared to controls. Biochemical compositions of the holobiont and the zooxanthellae density were determined at the onset of the experiment, and the photosynthetic efficiency (F v /F m) of zooxanthellae was monitored during the experiment. Acropora muricata rapidly regenerated small lesions, but regeneration rates significantly differed between sites. At the sheltered site characterized by high temperatures, temperature variations, and irradiance levels, regeneration took 192 days on average. At the exposed site, characterized by steadier temperatures and lower irradiation, nubbins demonstrated fast lesion repair (81 days), slower growth, lower zooxanthellae density, chlorophyll a concentration and lipid content than at the former site. A trade-off between growth and regeneration rates was evident here. High growth rates seem to impair regeneration capacity. We show that environmental conditions conducive to high zooxanthellae densities in corals are related to fast skeletal growth but also to reduced lesion regeneration rates. We hypothesize that a lowered regenerative capacity may be related to limited availability of energetic and cellular resources, consequences of coral holobionts operating at high levels of photosynthesis and associated growth.
ISSN: 1932-6203

hal-01369712
http://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01369712
http://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01369712/document
http://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01369712/file/journal.pone.0072618.PDF
DOI : 10.1371/journal.pone.0072618

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
The presence of photosynthetic zooxanthellae (dinoflagellates) in the tissue of many cnidarians is the main reason for their ecological success (i.e. coral reefs). It could also be the main cause of their demise, as the worldwide bleaching of reef-building coral is nothing less than the breakdown of this symbiotic association. The stability of this relationship is the principal marker for the biomonitoring of cnidarian health. We have therefore developed a new, simple method to isolate zooxanthellae in a few steps using NaOH solution. The protocol was validated in three symbiotic cnidarian species: a sea anemone, a gorgonian and a coral. Our method allows the isolation of intact and viable zooxanthellae with better yields than classic methods, especially for species with a calcareous skeleton. Moreover, the isolated zooxanthellae were free of host nucleic contaminants, facilitating subsequent specific molecular analyses.
Journal of Experimental Biology

hal-01546180
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01546180
DOI : 10.1242/jeb.074955