Abstract

Dramatic declines in reef shark populations have been documented worldwide in response to human activities. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) offer a useful mechanism to protect these species and their roles in coral reef ecosystems. The effectiveness of MPAs notably relies on compliance together with sufficient size to encompass animal home range. Here, we measured home range of 147 grey reef sharks, Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos, using acoustic telemetry in New Caledonia. The distribution of home range was then compared to local MPA sizes. We report a home range of 12 km2 of reef for the species with strong differences between adult males (21 km2), adult females (4.4 km2) and juveniles (6.2 km2 for males, 2.7 km2 for females). Whereas local historic MPA size seemed adequate to protect reef shark home range in general, these were clearly too small when considering adult males only, which is consistent with the reported failure of MPAs to protect sharks in New Caledonia. Fortunately, the recent implementation of several orders of magnitude larger MPAs in New Caledonia and abroad show that recent Indo-Pacific MPAs are now sufficiently large to protect the home ranges of this species, including males, across its geographical range. However, protection efforts are concentrated in a few regions and cannot provide adequate protection at a global scale.

Details

Title
Recent expansion of marine protected areas matches with home range of grey reef sharks
Author
Bonnin Lucas 1 ; Mouillot, David 2 ; Germain, Boussarie 1 ; Robbins, William D 3 ; Kiszka, Jeremy J 4 ; Dagorn Laurent 5 ; Vigliola Laurent 6 

 IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement), Laboratoire d’Excellence Labex Corail, UMR IRD-UR-CNRS ENTROPIE, Centre de Nouméa, Nouméa Cedex, France (GRID:grid.4399.7) (ISNI:0000000122879528); Univ Montpellier, MARBEC, CNRS, Montpellier, France (GRID:grid.121334.6) (ISNI:0000 0001 2097 0141) 
 Univ Montpellier, MARBEC, CNRS, Montpellier, France (GRID:grid.121334.6) (ISNI:0000 0001 2097 0141); James Cook University, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Townsville, Australia (GRID:grid.1011.1) (ISNI:0000 0004 0474 1797) 
 Wildlife Marine, Perth, Australia (GRID:grid.121334.6); Curtin University, Department of Environment and Agriculture, Perth, Australia (GRID:grid.1032.0) (ISNI:0000 0004 0375 4078); University of Technology Sydney, School of Life Sciences, Sydney, Australia (GRID:grid.117476.2) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 7611); Marine Science Program, Biodiversity and Conservation Science, Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Kensington, Australia (GRID:grid.452589.7) (ISNI:0000 0004 1799 3491) 
 Florida International University, Institut of Environment, Department of Biological Sciences, North Miami, USA (GRID:grid.65456.34) (ISNI:0000 0001 2110 1845) 
 Univ Montpellier, MARBEC, CNRS, Montpellier, France (GRID:grid.121334.6) (ISNI:0000 0001 2097 0141) 
 IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement), Laboratoire d’Excellence Labex Corail, UMR IRD-UR-CNRS ENTROPIE, Centre de Nouméa, Nouméa Cedex, France (GRID:grid.4399.7) (ISNI:0000000122879528) 
Publication year
2021
Publication date
2021
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2549835107
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.