Iliana Chollett

Marine Analytics and Management Tools Ltd

Climate change has become the greatest threat to the world's ecosystems. Locating and managing areas that contribute to the survival of key species under climate change is critical for the persistence of ecosystems in the future. Here, we identify ‘Climate Priority’ sites as coral reefs exposed to relatively low levels of climate stress that will b...

To support fishing communities, reserves should ensure the persistence of meta-populations while boosting fisheries yield. However, so far their design from the onset has rarely considered both objectives simultaneously. Here we overcome this barrier in designing a network of reserves for the Caribbean spiny lobster, a species with long larval dura...

Significance Effective fisheries management is needed to rebuild overfished stocks and prevent future overfishing, and doing so requires an understanding of fishers’ behavior. We offer an approach where “big data” routinely collected by many fisheries agencies can be used in a data-driven framework to classify fishers into discrete behavioral types...

In the search for protecting biodiversity, enhancing sustainable resource use, and minimizing conflict among users, spatial planning is now ubiquitous around the globe. Acquiring maps of fishing activity is critical to account for the interests of fishers, but fisheries are generally underrepresented in spatial plans. We conducted a quantitative sy...

The Caribbean Sea encompasses a vast range of physical environmental conditions that have a profound influence on the organisms that live there. Here we utilize a range of satellite and in situ products to undertake a region-wide categorization of the physical environments of the Caribbean Sea (PECS). The classification approach is hierarchical and...

Coral bleaching, a consequence of stressed symbiotic relationships between corals and algae, has escalated due to intensified heat stress events driven by climate change. Despite global efforts, current early warning systems lack local precision. Our study, spanning 2015–2017 in the Mesoamerican Reef, revealed prevalent intermediate bleaching, peak...

Caribbean coral reefs account for only 7% of the world total coral reef area but play a vital role in the economy of the Caribbean and the livelihoods of millions of people who depend upon the reefs for income and employment. Coral cover has declined from 50% in the 1970s to less than 20% today, potentially reducing the ability of the reefs to prov...

Red tides have affected marine and coastal communities for centuries. The effects of red tides on commercial capture fisheries have rarely been evaluated, owing in part to a lack of appropriate data. Leveraging modeled maps of red tide severity, vessel monitoring systems data, and logbook records, we investigated the commercial fisheries impacts of...

Mapping the economic value of the ocean is pivotal to understand how marine ecosystems contribute to human well-being and to support fisheries management. We present a framework to analyse fisheries data and map fishing revenues by linking Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) information to logbooks and observer data. We provide a detailed step-by-step m...

Larval dispersal connectivity is typically integrated into spatial conservation decisions at regional or national scales, but implementing agencies struggle with translating these methods to local scales. We used larval dispersal connectivity at regional (hundreds of kilometers) and local (tens of kilometers) scales to aid in design of networks of...

Larval dispersal is an important component of marine reserve networks. Two conceptually different approaches to incorporate dispersal connectivity into spatial planning of these networks exist, and it is an open question as to when either is most appropriate. Candidate reserve sites can be selected individually based on local properties of connecti...

The dispersal of larvae by ocean currents is likely to represent an increasingly important driver of marine population dynamics across fragmented habitats. A boost in availability of larval dispersal data from biophysical simulations has therefore led to routine calculations of population connectivity metrics that are used for area-based management...

Identifying relatively intact areas within ecosystems and determining the conditions favoring their existence is necessary for effective management in the context of widespread environmental degradation. In this study, we used 3766 surveys of randomly selected sites in the United States and U.S. Territories to identify the correlates of sites categ...

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...

There is a widespread need for reliable biodiversity databases for science and conservation. Among the many public databases available, we lack guidance as to how their data quality varies. Here, we compare species distribution data for a well known regional reef fish fauna extracted from five global online databases that supply “as is” data (GBIF,...

Anthropogenic environmental change has increased coral reef disturbance regimes in recent decades, altering the structure and function of many coral reefs globally. In this study, we used coral community survey data collected from 1996 to 2015 to evaluate reef‐scale coral calcification capacity (CCC) dynamics with respect to recorded pulse disturba...

Some locations have extraordinary ecological and conservation significance and subsequently need protection to guarantee the persistence of species that depend on them. Fish Spawning Aggregation (FSA) sites, where fish congregate to breed, are examples of such places, but are being extirpated worldwide through overfishing. Although transient FSA si...

This data package presents a three-decade (1985-2017) assessment of heat stress exposure in the wider Caribbean coral reefs at the ecoregional and local scales. The main heat stress indicator used was the Degree Heating Weeks (DHW) calculated from daily Sea Surface Temperature "CoralTemp" data from CRW-NOAA available from 1985 to the present and f...

Increasing heat stress due to global climate change is causing coral reef decline, and the Caribbean has been one of the most vulnerable regions. Here, we assessed three decades (1985–2017) of heat stress exposure in the wider Caribbean at ecoregional and local scales using remote sensing. We found a high spatial and temporal variability of heat st...

Notionally herbivorous fishes maintains a critical ecosystem function on coral reefs by grazing algae and maintaining highly productive algal turf assemblages. Current paradigms implicate habitat complexity, predation, and primary productivity as major drivers of the distribution and abundance of herbivorous fish, yet little is known about the rela...

Human activities have led to widespread ecological decline; however, the severity of degradation is spatially heterogeneous due to some locations resisting, escaping, or rebounding from disturbances. We developed a framework for identifying oases within coral reef regions using long‐term monitoring data. We calculated standardised estimates of cora...

Nearshore marine populations are structured in metapopulations that are connected through larval dispersal across national boundaries. One of the main challenges for effective management of these metapopulations is the need for partnerships between nations that share the same resource. By coupling large‐scale connectivity information to a dynamic p...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188564.].

Coastal ecosystems and the livelihoods they support are threatened by stressors acting at global and local scales. Here we used the data produced by the Caribbean Coastal Marine Productivity program (CARICOMP), the longest, largest monitoring program in the wider Caribbean, to evidence local-scale (decreases in water quality) and global-scale (incr...

Mixed effect models results. Word file including non-linear mixed effect model fits for temperature and visibility. (DOCX)

Site metadata. Word file including metadata for all CARICOMP stations included in the database and mixed effect model fits for temperature and visibility. (DOCX)

CARICOMP environmental database. Text file including all CARICOMP’s weekly environmental data. (TXT)

The Mesoamerican Reef (MAR) is an interconnected system that supports the local economies of four countries through the provision of seafood and tourism. Considerable financial, research and management effort has been invested in this priority ecoregion, whose boundaries were defined more than 18 yr ago based on best available data on oceanographic...

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...

Appendix S1 Null model approach To assess whether mean values of functional richness (FRic) and functional dispersion (FDis) at different levels of wave exposure were significantly different from those that could have emerged due to random community assembly processes, or from differences in species richness and bites per exposure level, we used a...

Figure S1 Benthic features across levels of wave exposure Fig. S1. (a) Primary productivity was significantly higher at moderate and high wave exposures (P = 0.01), and (b) marginally-significant differences in percent cover of grazable substrata occurred between high and low levels of wave exposure (P = 0.06). Mean growth rate of ungrazed algal tu...

Big data, such as vessel monitoring system (VMS) data, can provide valuable information on fishing behaviours. However, conventional methods of detecting behaviours in movement data are challenged when behaviours are briefer than signal resolution. We investigate options for improving detection accuracy for short-set fisheries using 581 648 positio...

Coral reef monitoring programmes exist in all regions of the world, recording reef attributes such as coral cover, fish biomass and macroalgal cover. Given the cost of such monitoring programs, and the degraded state of many of the world?s reefs, understanding how reef monitoring data can be used to shape management decisions for coral reefs is a h...

1.While environmental filters are well known factors influencing community assembly, the extent to which these modify species functions, and entire ecosystem processes is poorly understood. 2.Focusing on a high-diversity system we ask whether environmental filtering has ecosystem-wide effects beyond community assembly. We characterise a coral reef...

The physiological performance of a reef-building coral is a combined outcome of both the coral host and its algal endosymbionts, Symbiodinium. While Orbicella annularis—a dominant reef-building coral in the Wider Caribbean—is known to be a flexible host in terms of the diversity of Symbiodinium types it can associate with, it is uncertain how this...

Disturbance releases space and allows the growth of opportunistic species, excluded by the old stands, with a potential to alter community dynamics. In coral reefs, abundances of fast-growing, and disturbance-tolerant sponges are expected to increase and dominate as space becomes available following acute coral mortality events. Yet, an increase in...

Coral reefs are in decline worldwide and monitoring activities are important for assessing the impact of disturbance on reefs and tracking subsequent recovery or decline. Monitoring by field surveys provides accurate data but at highly localised scales and so is not cost-effective for reef scale monitoring at frequent time points. Remote sensing fr...

Methodology and Discussion - Table 1(SADIE outputs, describing the indices for evaluating the spatial distribution of each observed SymbiodiniumITS2 type), Table 2(Cluster indices generated by SADIE analysis for symbionts at each site), Table 3(Summary of DISTLM population-scale outputs), Table 4 (Genotype data for the coral host, Orbicella annular...

The designation of no-take marine reserves involves social and economic concerns due to the resulting displacement of fishing effort, when fishing rights are removed from those who traditionally fished within an area. Displacement can influence the functioning of the fishery and success of the reserve yet levels of displacement are seldom quantifie...

Region-wide assessments of coral cover typically rely on meta-analyses of smallscale ecological studies which have combined different coral reef habitats. This is particularly problematic on forereefs where at least 2 habitats can be found; coral-based bioherms and colonized hardgrounds (hereafter Orbicella reefs and gorgonian plains), each with ve...

Environmental conditions play an important role in post-disturbance dynamics of ecosystems by modulating recovery of surviving communities and influencing patterns of succession. Here, we document the effects of wave exposure following a catastrophic disturbance on coral reefs in driving a phase shift to macroalgal dominance. In December 2012, a Ca...

Aim: Coral assemblages on Caribbean reefs have largely been considered to be biogeographically homogeneous at a regional scale. We reassess this in three taxa (corals, sponges and octocorals) using three community attributes with increasing levels of information (species richness, composition and relative abundance) across hierarchical spatial scal...

The Sunda Banda Seascape (SBS), located in the center of the Coral Triangle, is a global center of marine biodiversity and a conservation priority. We proposed the first biophysical environmental delineation of the SBS using globally available satellite remote sensing and model-assimilated data to categorize this area into unique and meaningful bio...

Reef managers cannot fight global warming through mitigation at local scale, but they can use information on thermal patterns to plan for reserve networks that maximize the probability of persistence of their reef system. Here we assess previous methods for the design of reserves for climate change and present a new approach to prioritize areas for...

Under projections of global climate change and other stressors, significant changes in the ecology, structure and function of coral reefs are predicted. Current management strategies tend to look to the past to set goals, focusing on halting declines and restoring baseline conditions. Here we explore a complementary approach to decision making that...

Ecosystem management frequently aims to manage resilience yet measuring resilience has proven difficult. Here, we quantify the ecological resilience of the largest reef in the Caribbean and map potential benefits of marine reserves under two scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions. Resilience is calculated using spatial ecological models and defined...

Ocean temperature increase is recognised as one of the major threats to the future of coral reefs. During the past 50 years, global mean temperatures have risen by 0.13 degrees C/decade, but in the Caribbean warming trends are greater, and are of the order of 0.29 degrees C/decade. In light of this threat, some researchers have proposed that reefs...

K-selected species with low rates of sexual recruitment may utilise storage effects where low adult mortality allows a number of individuals to persist through time until a favourable recruitment period occurs. Alternative methods of recruitment may become increasingly important for such species if the availability of favourable conditions for sexu...

In the Caribbean region, forereef habitats dominated by Montastraea spp. have the highest biodiversity and support the largest number of ecosystem processes and services. Here we show that the distribution of this species-rich habitat can be explained by one environmental predictor: wave exposure. The relationship between wave exposure and the occu...

Global warming is a severe threat to coral reefs. It has been proposed that upwelling could minimise the thermal stress caused by ocean warming, and therefore upwelling areas may serve as a refuge for corals. Here, using 21 yr of satellite sea surface temperature data, we analysed the degree to which the thermal stress experienced by corals is redu...