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New method maps marine species connectivity for better park design

Well-designed marine parks can conserve marine life and their habitats, allow fish populations to recover, educate the public and support local economies.

Marine scientists from Flinders University have developed a new method to map connectivity in multiple marine species and to assess the design and resilience of marine parks in Australia and other countries. The article, "Connecting the dots: Applying multispecies connectivity in marine park network planning," has been in the journal Biological Conservation.

"Connectivity, or the movement of organisms from the place they are born, influences species distribution, persistence and evolution, and is also a critical factor for fisheries management and for the design of marine protected areas," says Matthew Flinders Professor Luciano Beheregaray, who led the new study.

"However, understanding marine connectivity is very difficult, not least because of the problems of observing direct movements in the sea.

"A good solution is to look at the DNA, which contains information about individual movement."

The new method uses information from published DNA datasets to identify patterns of connectivity for many marine species found across the same region.

The work was done using genetic and genomic data for fish, mollusks and dolphins from South Australia's marine parks network. This large network of 19 multiple-use conservation parks was established in 2009 to protect marine life along the SA coast, including sea birds, dolphins, kelps, leafy sea dragons and other fish species.

The study's first author, Dr. Katie Gates, says, "Our approach can be used to assess how movement patterns vary across different species and to understand how ocean currents, spatial distance and other factors influence connectivity.

"Marine ecosystems are highly dynamic, and their connectivity is affected by complex biological and environmental factors," she says. "They are threatened by several human activities, including overfishing, oil and gas exploration, introduction of invasive species and climate change.

"The new connectivity approach can identify priority areas for conservation, improve the design of new or existing marine parks, and be applied to any marine region of the world."