Anthropause; COVID-19; Coastline habitat; Coral reef fish; Human activities; Recreational activities; Global and Planetary Change
Abstract :
[en] [en] UNLABELLED: During the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, levels of coastal activities such as subsistence fishing and marine tourism declined rapidly throughout French Polynesia. Here, we examined whether the reduction in coastal use led to changes in fish density around the island of Moorea. Two natural coastal marine habitats (bare sand and mangrove) and one type of man-made coastal structure (embankment) were monitored on the west coast of the island before and after the first COVID-19 lockdown. At the end of the lockdown (May 2020), significantly higher apparent densities of juvenile and adult fish, including many harvested species, were recorded compared to levels documented in 2019 at the same period (April 2019). Fish densities subsequently declined as coastal activities recovered; however, 2 months after the end of the lockdown (July 2020), densities were still higher than they were in July 2019 with significant family-specific variation across habitats. This study highlights that short-term reductions in human activity can have a positive impact on coastal fish communities and may encourage future management policy that minimizes human impacts on coastline habitats.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10113-022-02011-0.
Disciplines :
Aquatic sciences & oceanology
Author, co-author :
Bertucci, Frédéric ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Biologie, Ecologie et Evolution > Morphologie fonctionnelle et évolutive ; PSL Université Paris, EPHE-UPVD-CNRS, UAR 3278 CRIOBE, 98729 Moorea, French Polynesia
Feeney, William E; Department of Biosciences, Durham University, Durham, UK ; Department of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute of Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany ; Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Ecology of Tropical Islands, College of Life Sciences, Hainan Normal University, Haikou, 571158 China
Cowan, Zara-Louise; Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Palaeontology and Geobiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
Gache, Camille; PSL Université Paris, EPHE-UPVD-CNRS, UAR 3278 CRIOBE, 98729 Moorea, French Polynesia ; Laboratoire d'Excellence "CORAIL", 66100 Perpignan, France
Fondation de France Labex Corail ANR - Agence Nationale de la Recherche Bloomberg Philanthropies
Funding text :
This work was supported by several grants: Fondation de France (2019–08602), Ministère de l’Economie verte et du domaine – Délégation à la Recherche de Polynésie française (contrat N3622 MED-EPHE), LabEx CORAIL (projects 2018 Emul and 2019 Plasti-Perl), ANR-19-CE34-0006-Manini, ANR-19-CE14-0010-SENSO, the Rāhui Forum and Ressource Center and the Vibrant Oceans Initiative supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
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