The growing use of data‐poor fisheries models provides unprecedented access to compelling stock metrics and management scenarios for coral‐reef fisheries. Yet, it remains unclear how well the assumptions surrounding data‐poor models derived from extensive cold‐water fisheries fit the life histories and ecology of tropical coral‐reef fishes. The present study compared the outcomes from length‐based spawning potential ratio (LBS...

Scientists and managers rely on indicator taxa such as coral and macroalgal cover to evaluate the effects of human disturbance on coral reefs, often assuming a universally positive relationship between local human disturbance and macroalgae. Despite evidence that macroalgae respond to local stressors in diverse ways, there have been few efforts to evaluate relationships between specific macroalgae taxa and local human‐driven d...

Escalating climate impacts on coral reefs are increasingly expanding management goals beyond preserving biodiversity to also maintaining ecosystem functions. Morphological and ecological species traits can help assess changes within reef communities beyond taxonomic identities alone. However, our limited understanding of trait interactions between habitat-building corals and associated reef fishes and whether they are captured...

Localized stressors compound the ongoing climate‐driven decline of coral reefs, requiring natural resource managers to work with rapidly shifting paradigms. Trait‐based adaptive management (TBAM) is a new framework to help address changing conditions by choosing and implementing management actions specific to species groups that share key traits, vulnerabilities, and management responses. In TBAM maintenance of functioning eco...

Trait diversity is believed to influence ecosystem dynamics through links between organismal traits and ecosystem processes. Theory predicts that key traits and high trait redundancy—large species richness and abundance supporting the same traits—can buffer communities against environmental disturbances. While experiments and data from simple ecological systems lend support, large‐scale evidence from diverse, natural systems u...

Reef development varies considerably around the high, raised‐limestone islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Here we examine the modern assemblages at 30 sites for coral composition, colony density, colony size, and fidelity. We defined four reef types and hypothesize the presence of environmentally driven ecological stasis, whereby the environment continuously selects for coral species membership...