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. 2008 May;11(5):481-9.
doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2008.01166.x. Epub 2008 Feb 22.

Marine reserves: size and age do matter

Joachim Claudet  1 , Craig W Osenberg, Lisandro Benedetti-Cecchi, Paolo Domenici, José-Antonio García-Charton, Angel Pérez-Ruzafa, Fabio Badalamenti, Just Bayle-Sempere, Alberto Brito, Fabio Bulleri, Jean-Michel Culioli, Mark Dimech, Jesús M Falcón, Ivan Guala, Marco Milazzo, Julio Sánchez-Meca, Paul J Somerfield, Ben Stobart, Frédéric Vandeperre, Carlos Valle, Serge Planes
Affiliations

Marine reserves: size and age do matter

Joachim Claudet et al. Ecol Lett. 2008 May.

Abstract

Marine reserves are widely used throughout the world to prevent overfishing and conserve biodiversity, but uncertainties remain about their optimal design. The effects of marine reserves are heterogeneous. Despite theoretical findings, empirical studies have previously found no effect of size on the effectiveness of marine reserves in protecting commercial fish stocks. Using 58 datasets from 19 European marine reserves, we show that reserve size and age do matter: Increasing the size of the no-take zone increases the density of commercial fishes within the reserve compared with outside; whereas the size of the buffer zone has the opposite effect. Moreover, positive effects of marine reserve on commercial fish species and species richness are linked to the time elapsed since the establishment of the protection scheme. The reserve size-dependency of the response to protection has strong implications for the spatial management of coastal areas because marine reserves are used for spatial zoning.

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