ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia; College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, 1 James Cook Drive, Douglas, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
Curr Biol. 2022 Jun 20;32(12):2610-2620.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.04.055. Epub 2022 May 13.
Effective solutions to the ongoing "coral reef crisis" will remain limited until the underlying drivers of coral reef degradation are better understood. Here, we conduct a global-scale study of how four key metrics of ecosystem states and processes on coral reefs (top predator presence, reef fish biomass, trait diversity, and parrotfish scraping potential) are explained by 11 indicators based on key human-environment theories from the social sciences. Our global analysis of >1,500 reefs reveals three key findings. First, the proximity of the nearest market has the strongest and most consistent relationships with these ecosystem metrics. This finding is in keeping with a body of terrestrial research on how market accessibility shapes agricultural practices, but the integration of these concepts in marine systems is nascent. Second, our global study shows that resource conditions tend to display a n-shaped relationship with socioeconomic development. Specifically, the probabilities of encountering a top predator, fish biomass, and fish trait diversity were highest where human development was moderate but lower where development was either high or low. This finding contrasts with previous regional-scale research demonstrating an environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis (which predicts a U-shaped relationship between socioeconomic development and resource conditions). Third, together, our ecosystem metrics are best explained by the integration of different human-environment theories. Our best model includes the interactions between indicators from different theoretical perspectives, revealing how marine reserves can have different outcomes depending on how far they are from markets and human settlements, as well as the size of the surrounding human population.
直到更好地了解珊瑚礁退化的根本驱动因素，才能找到解决当前“珊瑚礁危机”的有效方法。在这里，我们根据社会科学中的关键人类-环境理论，对珊瑚礁生态系统状态和过程的四个关键指标（顶级掠食者的存在、珊瑚鱼生物量、特征多样性和鹦嘴鱼刮食能力）如何由 11 个指标来解释进行了一项全球性研究。我们对超过 1500 个珊瑚礁的全球分析揭示了三个关键发现。首先，最近的市场距离与这些生态系统指标具有最强和最一致的关系。这一发现与大量关于市场可及性如何塑造农业实践的陆地研究一致，但这些概念在海洋系统中的整合还处于起步阶段。其次，我们的全球研究表明，资源条件与社会经济发展之间往往呈 N 型关系。具体来说，在人类发展适中的情况下，遇到顶级掠食者、鱼类生物量和鱼类特征多样性的概率最高，而在人类发展较高或较低的情况下，这些概率则较低。这一发现与以前的区域规模研究形成对比，后者表明了环境库兹涅茨曲线假说（该假说预测社会经济发展与资源条件之间呈 U 型关系）。第三，我们的生态系统指标总体上可以通过整合不同的人类-环境理论来最好地解释。我们的最佳模型包括来自不同理论视角的指标之间的相互作用，揭示了海洋保护区根据其与市场和人类住区的距离以及周围人口规模的不同，可能会产生不同的结果。
