On the face of it, the value of a marine reserve — the equivalent of a national park or wildlife preserve on land — seems obvious. The oceans are in trouble, and setting aside regions of biodiversity, where fishing is strictly limited, if not prohibited, is one of the few effective means of protecting many species at once. But politically, there is nothing simple about creating marine reserves in international waters. Recently, China and Russia succeeded in blocking, yet again, the creation of a large marine reserve in Antarctica.
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New research indicates that marine reserves may have an even greater importance than scientists previously supposed. A study recently published in Nature Climate Change found that marine reserves do more than merely shelter species that live within them. By enhancing the resilience of marine communities, reserves help ward off some of the effects of climate change, including invasion by species from warmer waters.
The study was based on research conducted at the Maria Island Marine Reserve, just off the coast of Tasmania. Though the reserve was only established in 1991, data on marine life there had been collected for more than 70 years. Comparing the reserve's ecosystem with similar but unprotected waters where fishing was allowed, scientists found greater long-term and short-term stability.
The overall health of the ecosystem helped create what the authors of the study called "a feedback mechanism to promote stability." The scientists found a substantial increase in the number of large-bodied fish and much less fluctuation, year to year, in the population of smaller fish.
This is a reminder of something that all too easily goes unnoticed. How species will endure the effects of global warming depends less on the individual species than the overall health of the ecosystem it belongs to. This study also suggested another essential service that marine reserves provide. By giving us a view into a relatively unaltered past — since the 1940s in the case of Maria Island — they show how healthy ecosystems function, which will be increasingly valuable as climate change disorders them.
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