Sustainable reference points for multispecies coral reef fisheries

Abstract

Sustainably managing fisheries requires regular and reliable evaluation of stock status. However, most multispecies reef fisheries around the globe tend to lack research and monitoring capacity, preventing the estimation of sustainable reference points against which stocks can be assessed. Here, combining fish biomass data for >2000 coral reefs, we estimate site-specific sustainable reference points for coral reef fisheries and use these and available catch estimates to assess the status of global coral reef fish stocks. We reveal that >50% of sites and jurisdictions with available information have stocks of conservation concern, having failed at least one fisheries sustainability benchmark. We quantify the trade-offs between biodiversity, fish length, and ecosystem functions relative to key benchmarks and highlight the ecological benefits of increasing sustainability. Our approach yields multispecies sustainable reference points for coral reef fisheries using environmental conditions, a promising means for enhancing the sustainability of the world's coral reef fisheries.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	This paper has 21 authors. You can scroll the list below to see them all or them all. Zamborain-Mason, J. Cinner, J.E. MacNeil, M.A. Graham, N.A.J. Hoey, A.S. Beger, M. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1363-3571 Brooks, A.J. Booth, D.J. Edgar, G.J. Feary, D.A. Ferse, S.C.A. Friedlander, A.M. Gough, C.L.A. Green, A.L. Mouillot, D. Polunin, N.V.C. Stuart-Smith, R.D. Wantiez, L. Williams, I.D. Wilson, S.K. Connolly, S.R.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Dates:	Published: 4 September 2023 Published (online): 4 September 2023 Accepted: 18 August 2023
Institution:	The University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Publications
Date Deposited:	19 Sep 2023 13:26
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2023 13:26
Published Version:	https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41040-z
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Nature Research
Identification Number:	10.1038/s41467-023-41040-z
Related URLs:	PubMed URL
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:203474

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Sustainable reference points for multispecies coral reef fisheries

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