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Marine reserves have been widely promoted as conservation and fishery management tools. There are robust demonstrations of conservation benefits, but fishery benefits remain controversial. We show that marine reserves in Florida (United States) and St. Lucia have enhanced adjacent fisheries. Within 5 years of creation, a network of five small reserves in St. Lucia increased adjacent catches of artisanal fishers by between 46 and 90%, depending on the type of gear the fishers used. In Florida, reserve zones in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge have supplied increasing numbers of world record-sized fish to adjacent recreational fisheries since the 1970s. Our study confirms theoretical predictions that marine reserves can play a key role in supporting fisheries.
Marine reserves, areas that are closed to all fishing, have been attracting much attention for their dual potential as conservation and fishery management tools (1-5). A synthesis of more than 100 studies of reserves worldwide shows that protection from fishing leads to rapid increases in biomass, abundance, and average size of exploited organisms and to increased species diversity (6). Such effects are of great interest to fishery managers, because rebuilding exploited populations in reserves offers prospects of fishery enhancement (3, 7).
Because reserves contain more and larger fish, protected populations can potentially produce many times more offspring than can exploited populations. In some cases, studies have estimated order-of-magnitude differences in egg production (8). Increased egg output is predicted to supply adjacent fisheries through export of offspring on ocean currents (9-11). In addition, as protected stocks build up, reserves are predicted to supply local fisheries through density-dependent spillover of juveniles and adults into fishing grounds (7).
Whereas the effects of reserves within their boundaries have strong empirical support, evidence that they enhance fisheries is sparse (4). Several studies have suggested export by showing higher densities of exploited species or greater catch per unit effort adjacent to reserve borders (12-14). When a reserve in the Philippines was reopened to fishing, catches collapsed in nearby areas, which suggests that the reserve had previously supported fisheries (15). Catches rose again after renewed compliance (16). However, none of these studies showed an increase in total production after reserve creation. We investigated the effects on neighboring fisheries of marine reserves in Florida (United States)...