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Effects of Marine Park Zoning on Coral Reefs of the Capricorn-Bunker Group

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Effects of Marine Park Zoning on Coral Reefs of the Capricorn-Bunker Group Final Report Effects of marine park zoning on coral reefs of the Capricorn-Bunker Group Hugh Sweatman, Alistair Cheal, Mike Emslie, Kerryn Johns, Michelle Jonker, Ian Miller and Kate Osborne Effects of marine park zoning on coral reefs of the Capricorn-Bunker Group Report on surveys in October 2015 Hugh Sweatman, Alistair Cheal, Mike Emslie, Kerryn Johns, Michelle Jonker, Ian Miller, and Kate Osborne Australian Institute of Marine Science Supported by the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Programme Project 3.7 Monitoring the effects of zoning on coral reefsand theirassociated fish communities in the GBR Marine Park © Australian Institute of Marine Science, 2015 Creative Commons Attribution Effects of marine park zoning on coral reefs of the Capricorn-Bunker Group – Report on surveys in October 2015 is licensed by the Australian Institute of Marine Science for use under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Australia licence. For licence conditions see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This report should be cited as: Sweatman H, Cheal A, Emslie M, Johns K, Jonker M, Miller I, and Osborne K (2015) Effects of marine park zoning on coral reefs of the Capricorn-Bunker Group – Report on surveys in October 2015 Report to the National Environmental Science Program. Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Limited, Cairns (15pp.). Published by the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre on behalf of the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Programme (NESP) Tropical Water Quality (TWQ) Hub. The Tropical Water Quality Hub is part of the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Programme and is administered by the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Limited (RRRC). The NESP TWQ Hub addresses water quality and coastal management in the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef, its catchments and other tropical waters, through the generation and transfer of world-class research and shared knowledge. This publication is copyright. The Copyright Act 1968 permits fair dealing for study, research, information or educational purposes subject to inclusion of a sufficient acknowledgement of the source. The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Australian Government. While reasonable effort has been made to ensure that the contents of this publication are factually correct, the Commonwealth does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the contents, and shall not be liable for any loss or damage that may be occasioned directly or indirectly through the use of, or reliance on, the contents of this publication. Cover photographs: AIMS LTMP This report is available for download from the NESP Tropical Water Quality Hub website: http://www.nesptropical.edu.au Effects of marine park zoning on coral reefs of the Capricorn-Bunker Group CONTENTS List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... ii Acronyms................................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. iv 1.0 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 2.0 Methods .............................................................................................................................. 3 2.1 Selection of study reefs .................................................................................................. 3 2.2 Sampling methods .......................................................................................................... 3 2.3 Statistical methods .......................................................................................................... 4 3.0 Results ............................................................................................................................... 7 3.1 Effects on exploited species: coral trout ......................................................................... 7 3.2 Effects on other species of fishes: herbivorous fishes .................................................... 9 3.3 Effects of zoning on coral cover .................................................................................... 10 3.4 Effects of zoning on coral recruitment .......................................................................... 11 3.5 Crown-of-thorns starfish on Capricorn-Bunker reefs .................................................... 12 4.0 Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 13 References ............................................................................................................................. 14 i Sweatman et al. LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Map of the central and southern Great Barrier Reef showing the five clusters of paired study reefs (orange areas) that comprise the survey design for the entire project. Reefs range from the Cairns-Innisfail region in the north to the Capricorn-Bunker reefs in the south. Grey circles show the locations of inshore study areas surveyed by staff of JCU in a complementary program. The surveys reported here only concern the southern Capricorn-Bunker region. ............................................................................................................... 5 Figure 2: Annotated Google Earth image of the Capricorn-Bunker reefs. Survey reefs are named and the colour of the text labels shows the post-2004 zoning (Green – no-take reefs, blue – reefs that bare open to fishing). Numbers in parentheses denote the reef pair that each survey reef belongs to. ................. 6 Figure 3: Abundance of coral trout (Plectropomus spp) on blue (fished) and green (no- take) offshore reefs in the Capricorn-Bunker region for the 2006-2016 reporting years. Error bars are 95% limits of Highest Probability Density (HPD) .......................................................................................................................... 8 Figure 4: Biomass of coral trout (Plectropomus spp) on blue (fished) and green (no- take) offshore reefs in the Capricorn-Bunker region for the 2006-2016 reporting year. Error bars are 95% limits of Highest Probability Density (HPD) 8 Figure 5: Abundance of mobile herbivorous reef fishes on matched pairs of offshore blue and green reefs in the Capricorn-Bunker region of the GBR Marine Park, 2006-16. ............................................................................................................ 9 Figure 6: Percent cover of hard coral cover on matched pairs of offshore blue and green reefs in the Capricorn-Bunker region of the GBR Marine Park, 2006-16. ....... 10 Figure 7: Average counts of juvenile corals (per m2 of substrate available for settlement) on matched pairs of offshore blue and green reefs the Capricorn & Bunker Groups in the southern GBR Marine Park, 2008-16. ...................................... 11 ii Effects of marine park zoning on coral reefs of the Capricorn-Bunker Group ACRONYMS AIMS Australian Institute of Marine Science COTS Crown-of-thorns starfish GBR Great Barrier Reef GBRMP Great Barrier Reef Marine Park GBRMPA Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority GBRWHA Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area HPD Highest Probability Density JCU James Cook University LTMP Long-term Monitoring Program MPA Marine Protected Area TL Total length iii Sweatman et al. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank the crew of the RV Cape Ferguson, and Scott Gardner, Connie Rowe, Hayley Brien and Luke Calvert for their assistance. The project was funded by AIMS Appropriation funds and the Tropical Water Quality Hub of the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Programme. iv Effects of marine park zoning on coral reefs of the Capricorn-Bunker Group SUMMARY Here we report findings from the AIMS surveys of the effects of marine park zoning on communities of fishes and corals on Capricorn-Bunker Reefs in October 2015. Four pairs of matched reefs were surveyed; one reef in each pair is open to fishing while the other was zoned no-take in 2004. The abundance and biomass of the primary target of reef line fishery, coral trout, were higher on no-take reefs in the Capricorn-Bunker region. However there were no consistent differences in the numbers of herbivorous fishes, in cover of live hard coral or the abundance of juvenile hard corals. These results concur with the overall findings of these surveys on the GBR since 2006 (Emslie et al., 2015): protection from fishing has a clear effect on target species, but few indirect effects on other components of the reef community. 1 Sweatman et al. 1.0 INTRODUCTION The establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) where fishing is not permitted is the most commonly advocated measure for conservation of biodiversity in coastal areas. There is clear evidence that no-take MPAs are associated with increased populations and size of individuals of fishery target species within the protected areas (Bohnsack 1993, Halpern and Warner 2002, Halpern 2003) with increasingly convincing evidence for spill-over of adults and recruits into the surrounding unprotected habitats (Abesamis and Russ 2005, Harrison et al. 2012,). In some circumstances, the establishment of MPAs has led to broader ecosystem
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