Effectiveness of a deep-sea cold-water coral marine protected area, following eight years of fisheries closure

dc.contributor.authorHuvenne, V. A. I.
dc.contributor.authorBett, B. J.
dc.contributor.authorMasson, D. G.
dc.contributor.authorLe Bas, T. P.
dc.contributor.authorWheeler, Andrew J.
dc.contributor.funderNatural Environment Research Councilen
dc.contributor.funderEuropean Research Councilen
dc.contributor.funderAtlantic Frontier Environmental Networken
dc.contributor.funderFifth Framework Programmeen
dc.contributor.funderPEW Foundationen
dc.contributor.funderJoint Nature Conservation Committeeen
dc.date.accessioned2019-10-26T07:20:55Z
dc.date.available2019-10-26T07:20:55Z
dc.date.issued2016-06-09
dc.description.abstractPressure on deep-sea ecosystems continues to increase as anthropogenic activities move into ever deeper waters. To mitigate impacts on vulnerable habitats, various conservation measures exist, such as the designation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). So far, however, little evidence is available about their effectiveness. This paper presents a unique follow-up study assessing the status and recovery of a deep-sea fisheries closure and MPA at ~ 1000 m water depth in the NE Atlantic, eight years after designation. The Darwin Mounds cold-water coral ecosystem was discovered in 1998, and closed to all bottom contact fisheries, especially trawling, in 2003. Our repeat survey in 2011 used both high-resolution sidescan sonar data collected by Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and video footage from a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to evaluate recovery. The results demonstrate that (1) protection was successful and fishing impact was largely avoided in the Western Darwin Mounds, which contained similar proportions of live cold-water coral occurrence in 2011 as observed in 1998–2000; however (2) the Eastern Darwin Mounds suffered severe damage pre-closure, and by 2011 showed no coral recolonisation and very little regrowth. These results are further evidence for the low resilience and slow recovery potential of deep-sea ecosystems, and underline once again the importance of the precautionary principle in deep-sea conservation.en
dc.description.sponsorshipFifth Framework Programme (EU FP5 project ACES (Atlantic Coral Ecosystem Study, Contract no. EVK3-CT-1999-00008))en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationHuvenne, V. A. I., Bett, B. J., Masson, D. G., Le Bas, T. P. and Wheeler, A. J. (2016), 'Effectiveness of a deep-sea cold-water coral Marine Protected Area, following eight years of fisheries closure', Biological Conservation, 200, pp. 60-69. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2016.05.030en
dc.identifier.doi10.1016/j.biocon.2016.05.030en
dc.identifier.endpage69en
dc.identifier.issn0006-3207
dc.identifier.journaltitleBiological Conservationen
dc.identifier.startpage60en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/8882
dc.identifier.volume200en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherElsevieren
dc.relation.projectinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7::SP2::ERC/258482/EU/COmplex Deep-sea Environments: Mapping habitat heterogeneity As Proxy for biodiversity/CODEMAPen
dc.relation.urihttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320716302117?via%3Dihub
dc.rights©016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)en
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.subjectCold-water coral ecosystem resilienceen
dc.subjectBottom trawlingen
dc.subjectMarine conservationen
dc.subjectPrecautionary principleen
dc.subjectMonitoring of deep-sea MPAsen
dc.titleEffectiveness of a deep-sea cold-water coral marine protected area, following eight years of fisheries closureen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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