Marine protected areas (MPAs) are essential tools for protecting marine ecosystems; yet, their effectiveness varies across regions. In the Caribbean, home to some of the world’s most degraded reefs, evaluating MPA performance requires consistent ecological data and information on management practices. To address this, we conducted standardised reef fish surveys of small (< 20 cm) and large (≥ 20 cm) fish across 83 sites in ten...

Understanding the extent and magnitude of change in marine food webs requires historical data that predates modern monitoring efforts. Such information can provide invaluable insights into the longer‐term impacts of altered trophic interactions, yet it is rarely incorporated into marine policy frameworks. Using multiple stomach records spanning over a century, we investigated long‐term changes in the diet composition of six de...

Understanding the drivers of food web community structure is a fundamental goal in ecology. While studies indicate that many coral reef predators depend on pelagic subsidies, the mechanism through which this occurs remains elusive. As many of these species are important fishery targets, a better understanding of their trophodynamics is needed. To address these gaps, we employed a comprehensive structural equation modelling app...

Sympatric flatfish predators may partition their resources in coastal environments to reduce competition and maximise foraging efficiency. However, the degree of spatial and temporal consistency in their trophic ecology is not well understood because dietary studies tend to overlook the heterogeneity of consumed prey. Increasing the spatial and temporal scale of dietary analyses can thus help to resolve predator resource use....

A rapidly warming Arctic Ocean and associated sea‐ice decline is resulting in changing sea‐ice protist communities, affecting productivity of under‐ice, pelagic, and benthic fauna. Quantifying such effects is hampered by a lack of biomarkers suitable for tracing specific basal resources (primary producers and microorganisms) through food webs. We investigate the potential of δ 13 C values of essential amino acids (EAAs) (δ 13...

The UK coastal trap fisheries target two key species, European lobster Homarus gammarus (L.) and brown crab Cancer pagurus L. Their stock status is assessed periodically using size‐based, yield‐per‐recruit analysis. Fishery trends are described using landings and, where available, effort data to estimate catch per unit of effort (CPUE), nominally proportional to abundance. Despite being caught together, assessments assume that...

Predators on coral reefs play an important ecological role structuring reef fish communities and are important fishery targets. It is thought that reef predator assemblages increase in density and diversity from inner lagoonal to outer edge reefs. Oceanic atolls may differ though, as nutrients are available throughout. Reef predator populations are declining, but there is little known about how their distributions may vary acr...

Stable isotopes have provided important insight into the trophic structure and interaction in many ecosystems, but to date have scarcely been applied to the complex food webs of coral reefs. We sampled white muscle tissues from the fish species composing 80% of the biomass in the 4–512 g body mass range at Cape Eleuthera (the Bahamas) in order to examine isotopic niches characterised by δ 13 C and δ 15 N data and explore wheth...

The grazing behaviour of two Caribbean parrotfish, a fished species, the stoplight parrotfish Sparisoma viride and a non‐fished species, the striped parrotfish Scarus iseri , were studied in the presence (fished site) and absence (marine reserve) of chronic spearfishing activity. Diurnal feeding periodicity did not differ between the sites in either species: roving individuals had significantly higher bite rates in the afterno...

Disturbance plays an important role in structuring marine ecosystems, and there is a need to understand how conservation practices, such as the designation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), facilitate postdisturbance recovery. We evaluated the association of MPAs, herbivorous fish biomass, substrate type, postdisturbance coral cover, and change in macroalgal cover with coral recovery on the fringing reefs of the inner Seychell...

Coral reefs are highly complex ecological systems, where multiple processes interact across scales in space and time to create assemblages of exceptionally high biodiversity. Despite the increasing frequency of hierarchically structured sampling programs used in coral‐reef science, little progress has been made in quantifying the relative importance of processes operating across multiple scales. The vast majority of reef studi...

Recent episodes of coral bleaching have led to wide‐scale loss of reef corals and raised concerns over the effectiveness of existing conservation and management efforts. The 1998 bleaching event was most severe in the western Indian Ocean, where coral declined by up to 90% in some locations. Using fisheries‐independent data, we assessed the long‐term impacts of this event on fishery target species in the Seychelles, the overal...

Increased frequency of disturbances and anthropogenic activities are predicted to have a devastating impact on coral reefs that will ultimately change the composition of reef associated fish communities. We reviewed and analysed studies that document the effects of disturbance‐mediated coral loss on coral reef fishes. Meta‐analysis of 17 independent studies revealed that 62% of fish species declined in abundance within 3 years...

Fisheries exploitation provides the opportunity to examine the ecosystem‐scale biodiversity consequences of predator removal. We document predatory reef fish densities, coral‐eating starfish densities and coral reef structure along a 13‐island gradient of subsistence exploitation in Fiji. Along the fishing intensity gradient, predator densities declined by 61% and starfish densities increased by three orders of magnitude. Reef...

Fishing has led to local extirpations of reef fishes. For conservation and management purposes, it is important to identify all those species that are vulnerable to fishing, but this cannot be done using a priori assessments or by describing trends in abundance because the necessary scientific resources are not available. Thus the predictions of vulnerability that provide the basis for conservation action will have to be made...