Alison Green

The Nature Conservancy · Indo-Pacific Division

Ongoing declines in the structure and function of the world's coral reefs require novel approaches to sustain these ecosystems and the millions of people who depend on them. A presently unexplored approach that draws on theory and practice in human health and rural development is to systematically identify and learn from the 'outliers'-places where...

Well-designed and effectively managed networks of marine reserves can be effective tools for both fisheries management and biodiversity conservation. Connectivity, the demographic linking of local populations through the dispersal of individuals as larvae, juveniles or adults, is a key ecological factor to consider in marine reserve design, since i...

Overfishing and habitat destruction due to local and global threats are undermining fisheries, biodiversity, and the long-term sustainability of tropical marine ecosystems worldwide, including in the Coral Triangle. Well-designed and effectively managed marine reserve networks can reduce local threats, and contribute to achieving multiple objective...

Coral reef fishes differ in their intrinsic vulnerability to fishing and rates of population recovery after cessation of fishing. We reviewed life history-based predictions about the vulnerability of different groups of coral reef fish and examined the empirical evidence for different rates of population recovery inside no-take marine reserves to (...

Giant clams are ecologically important, benefitting species of all trophic levels. But numerous populations have declined drastically in numbers due to past intensive exploitation that led to their listing in both CITES Appendix II and IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. However, giant clams are notoriously difficult to identify, and recent molecu...

Giant clams are ecologically important, benefitting species of all trophic levels. But numerous populations have declined drastically in numbers due to past intensive exploitation that led to their listing in both CITES Appendix II and IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.. However, giant clams are notoriously difficult to identify, and recent molec...

Sustainably managing fisheries requires regular and reliable evaluation of stock status. However, most multispecies reef fisheries around the globe tend to be data-poor and lack research and monitoring capacity (e.g., long-term fishery data), preventing the estimation of sustainable reference points against which stocks can be assessed. Here, combi...

Setting appropriate conservation strategies in a multi-threat world is a challenging goal, especially because of natural complexity and budget limitations that prevent effective management of all ecosystems. Safeguarding the most threatened ecosystems requires accurate and integrative quantification of their vulnerability and their functioning, par...

Human impact increasingly alters global ecosystems, often reducing biodiversity and disrupting the provision of essential ecosystem services to humanity. Therefore, preserving ecosystem functioning is a critical challenge of the twenty-first century. Coral reefs are declining worldwide due to the pervasive effects of climate change and intensive fi...

Giant clams are keystone species on coral reefs, but global demand for their harvest has decimated populations and resulted in all Tridacnids being listed on both CITES and IUCN lists. However, giant clams are notoriously difficult to identify, and recent molecular work has revealed that morphological misidentification of giant clams have confounde...

We observed groupers with an unusual color pattern in Ghoubet-Al-Kharab Bay, Djibouti, on two occasions in 2014 and 2020. It matches the field observation of a juvenile Cephalopholis formosa in India in 1980. If this is the case, our observation represents a major range extension for C. formosa . Alternatively, based on the intermediate coloration...

Climate-smart conservation addresses the vulnerability of biodiversity to climate change impacts but may require transboundary considerations. Here, we adapt and refine 16 biophysical guidelines for climate-smart marine reserves for the transboundary California Bight ecoregion. We link several climate-adaptation strategies (e.g., maintaining connec...

Marine conservation design and fisheries management are increasingly integrating biophysical, socio-economic and governance considerations. Integrative approaches are adopted to achieve more effective, equitable, inclusive, and robust marine policies and practices. This paper describes a participatory process to co-produce biophysical, socio-econom...

Marine conservation design and fisheries management are increasingly integrating biophysical, socio-economic and governance considerations. Integrative approaches are adopted to achieve more effective, equitable, inclusive, and robust marine policies and practices. This paper describes a participatory process to co-produce biophysical, socio-econom...

Indonesia is the largest archipelagic nation in the world with 17,504 islands, a coastline of 108,000 km and 15.8% (27,255 km²) of the world’s coral reefs. This paper reviews the status of marine protected areas (MPAs) and networks of MPA in Indonesia, draws on lessons learned, and highlights what has been learned from the design of a network of MP...

In 1917, Alfred Mayor surveyed a 270 m transect on a reef flat on American Samoa. Eleven surveys were conducted on the transect from 1917 to 2019. The coral community on the reef crest was resilient over the century, occasionally being seriously damaged but always recovering rapidly. In contrast, the originally most dense coral community on the ree...

The Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region comprises almost 6% (about 15,180 km2) of the total global area of coral reefs, and the region is a globally important hotspot for coral reef biodiversity. The WIO includes sovereign states along the eastern and southern African mainland (Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa), island states (Mauri...

Intensified coastal development is compromising the health and functioning of marine ecosystems. A key example of this is the Red Sea, a biodiversity hotspot subjected to increasing local human pressures. While some marine protected areas (MPAs) were placed to alleviate these stressors, it is unclear whether these MPAs are managed or enforced, thus...

In the face of increasing anthropogenic threats, coastal nations need to reach common ground for effective marine conservation. Understanding species' connectivity can reveal how nations share resources, demonstrating the need for cooperative protection efforts. Unfortunately, connectivity information is rarely integrated into the design of marine...

A complex landscape for reef management Coral reefs are among the most biodiverse systems in the ocean, and they provide both food and ecological services. They are also highly threatened by climate change and human pressure. Cinner et al. looked at how best to maximize three key components of reef use and health: fish biomass, parrotfish grazing,...

Aim To investigate biotic and abiotic correlates of reef‐fish species richness across multiple spatial scales. Location Tropical reefs around the globe, including 485 sites in 109 sub‐provinces spread across 14 biogeographic provinces. Time period Present. Major taxa studied 2,523 species of reef fish. Methods We compiled a database encompassin...

Coral reef managers currently face the challenge of mitigating global stressors by enhancing local ecological resilience in a changing climate. Effective herbivore management is one tool that managers can use in order to maintain resilience in the midst of severe and frequent bleaching events. One recommended approach is to establish networks of he...

No-take marine reserves can be powerful management tools, but only if they are well designed and effectively managed. We review how ecological guidelines for improving marine reserve design can be adapted based on an area’s unique evolutionary, oceanic, and ecological characteristics in the Gulf of California, Mexico. We provide ecological guidelin...

Aim Use a fishery‐independent metric to model and map regional‐scale fishing impact, and demonstrate how this metric assists with modelling current and potential fish biomass to support coral‐reef management. We also examine the relative importance of anthropogenic and natural factors on fishes at biogeographical scales. Location Reefs of five jur...

Significance Marine reserves that prohibit fishing are a critical tool for sustaining coral reef ecosystems, yet it remains unclear how human impacts in surrounding areas affect the capacity of marine reserves to deliver key conservation benefits. Our global study found that only marine reserves in areas of low human impact consistently sustained t...

El Sistema Arrecifal Mesoamericano (SAM) es uno de los más grandes ecosistemas arrecifales coralinos en el mundo, que alberga una biodiversidad única y que provee bienes y servicios ecosistémicos fundamentales a casi dos millones de personas. Este ecosistema, y los bienes y servicios que proporciona, están en declive debido a una combinación de ame...

The Mesoamerican Reef System (MAR) is one of the largest coral reef ecosystems in the world, which supports unique biodiversity and provides critical ecosystem goods and services to nearly two million people. These ecosystems, and the goods and services they provide, are in decline due to a combination of local (habitat destruction, unsustainable f...

Marine reserves are a commonly applied conservation tool, but their size is often chosen based on considerations of socio-economic rather than ecological impact. Here, we use a simple individual-based model together with the latest empirical information on home ranges and densities in 66 coral reef fishes to quantify the conservation effectiveness...

Larval dispersal by ocean currents is a critical component of systematic marine protected area (MPA) design. However, there is a lack of quantitative methods to incorporate larval dispersal in support of increasingly diverse management objectives, including local population persistence under multiple types of threats (primarily focused on larval re...

Multinational conservation initiatives that prioritize investment across a region invariably navigate trade-offs among multiple objectives. It seems logical to focus where several objectives can be achieved efficiently, but such multi-objective hotspots may be ecologically inappropriate, or politically inequitable. Here we devise a framework to fac...

Multinational conservation initiatives that prioritize investment across a region invariably navigate trade-offs among multiple objectives. It seems logical to focus where several objectives can be achieved efficiently, but such multi-objective hotspots may be ecologically inappropriate, or politically inequitable. Here we devise a framework to fac...

Well-designed and effectively managed networks of marine reserves can be effective tools for both fisheries management and biodiversity conservation. Connectivity, the demographic linking of local populations through the dispersal of individuals as larvae, juveniles or adults, is a key ecological factor to consider in marine reserve design, since i...

Newly recruited Ctenochaetus striatus were monitored over a 16-month period in American Samoa, 2002-2003. During this period, a mass recruitment of age-0 C. striatus occurred in March 2002 with numbers reaching 22.9 recruits m(-2). This program provided an invaluable opportunity to (1) analyze the dynamics of a mass recruitment episode and to asses...

Cumulative pressures from global climate and ocean change combined with multiple regional and local-scale stressors pose fundamental challenges to coral reef managers worldwide. Understanding how cumulative stressors affect coral reef vulnerability is critical for successful reef conservation now and in the future. In this review, we present the ca...

The six Coral Triangle countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste, each have evolving systems of marine protected areas (MPAs) at the national and local levels. Now with more than 1,900 MPAs covering 208,152 km2 (1.6% of the extended economic zone for the region), the Coral Triangle Initiative fo...

The six Coral Triangle countries?Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste?each have evolving systems of marine protected areas (MPAs) at the national and local levels. More than 1,900 MPAs covering 200,881Â km2 (1.6% of the exclusive economic zone for the region) have been established within these countri...

The Coral Triangle Marine Protected Area System aspires to become a region-wide, comprehensive, ecologically representative and well-managed system of marine pro- tected areas (MPAs) and MPA networks. The development of this system will proceed primarily through the implementation of ecological, social, and governance MPA net- works at the sub-nati...

On coral reefs, herbivorous fishes consume benthic primary producers and regulate competition between fleshy algae and reef-building corals. Many of these species are also important fishery targets, yet little is known about their global status. Using a large-scale synthesis of peer-reviewed and unpublished data, we examine variability in abundance...

Abstract Spatial analyses of coral distributions at species level delineate the Coral Triangle and provide new insights into patterns of diversity and endemism around the globe. This study shows that the Coral Triangle, an area extending from the Philippines to the Solomon Islands, has 605 zooxanthellate corals including 15 regional endemics. This...

In 1917, Alfred Mayor recorded rich coral communities in distinct zones on the reef flat along a permanent transect at Aua village in Pago Pago Harbor, American Samoa. In the 1950s-1980s, this area was seriously degraded by chronic pollution from two tuna canneries and fuel spills in the inner harbor and by coastal development. By the 1970s, coral...

Coral reef fisheries are crucial to the livelihoods of tens of millions of people; yet, widespread habitat degradation and unsustainable fishing are causing severe depletion of stocks of reef fish. Understanding how social and economic factors, such as human population density, access to external markets, and modernization interact with fishing and...

Tropical coastal and marine ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to ocean warming, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise. Yet these projected climate and ocean change impacts are rarely considered in conservation planning due to the lack of guidance on how existing climate and ocean change models, tools, and data can be applied. Here, we addres...

This Marine Rapid Assessment of the Banda Islands, Maluku Tengah District, Maluku Province was carried out from 5 to 15 November 2012 and aimed at collecting and updating biophysical and socioeconomic baseline information for the Banda Islands. The Banda Islands are located in Maluku Tengah District, on the Banda Sea inner arc. The Islands are a re...

Lionfish (Pterois volitans and P. miles) have become a major concern in the western Attantie and Caribbean since their introduction in the 1980s. Invasive lionfish can reach very high population densities on coral reefs in their invaded range, yet there are few data from their native range in the Indo-Pacific for comparison. We compiled data on the...