Fisheries restrictions and their cascading effects on herbivore abundance and macroalgae removal at Kenyan coral reefs

Authors

Ewout G. Knoester¹ , Veerle E. Plug² , Albertinka J. Murk¹ , Susan O. Sande² , Ronald Osinga¹

1. Wageningen University & Research
2. Kenyatta University

Conference / event

14th International Coral Reef Symposium, July 2020 (Virtual)

Poster summary

This study evaluated the influence of fisheries management on the abundance and browsing of herbivorous fish in Kenya. Herbivorous fish biomass was clearly higher in protected areas, especially of large-bodied species such as unicornfishes and certain parrotfishes. The removal of common macroalgae was up to three-fold higher in protected areas and this correlated well with the higher biomasses of unicornfishes and parrotfishes. In unprotected areas, damselfishes and sea urchins dominated and overall browsing pressure was low. This shows that fishing restrictions can support reef resilience by increasing herbivorous fish biomass of key species and thereby promote macroalgae removal.

Keywords

Browsing, Sargassum, Padina, Protected area, Grazers, Reef restoration

Research areas

Biological Sciences, Ecology and Forestry, Environmental Sciences, Ocean Sciences

References

1. Knoester, E. G., Plug, V. E., Murk, A. J., Sande, S. O., & Osinga, R. (2023). Fisheries restrictions and their cascading effects on herbivore abundance and macroalgae removal at Kenyan coral reefs. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 559, 151850.

Funding

No data provided

Supplemental files

1. Published article   Download

Additional information

Competing interests

No competing interests were disclosed.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and / or analyzed during the current study are available elsewhere (e.g., repository).
github.com/ewoutknoester/HerbivoryBrowsing

Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2023 Knoester et al. This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.