Identification of priority conservation sites for reef building corals in Oaxaca State, Mexico

Authors

  • Ramón Andrés López Pérez Instituto de Recursos, Universidad del Mar. Ciudad Universitaria, A.P 47. Puerto Ángel, Oax., 70902. México
  • Armando López García Programa de Postgrado, Universidad del Mar. Ciudad Universitaria, Puerto Ángel, Oax.

Keywords:

Reserve selection, marine protected areas, conservation, corals, Mexican Pacific.

Abstract

Coral reefs worldwide are being destroyed at an alarming rate, therefore it is necessary to overcome the current
trend. In order to identify coral-reef conservation areas in the coast of Oaxaca and compare the design suggested
by these methods against the one currently proposed by the Parque Nacional Huatulco (PNH). A presence/absence
coral-reefs data base was analyzed by taxonomic diversity, hotspot analysis, complementarity algorithms, and random
accumulation of reserve sites. There was a lack of concordance between the reserve-selection approaches employed.
Cumulative species-site curves indicated that complementarity maximized the rate of accumulation of species,
followed by the hotspot and the random accumulation approaches. Just two out of ten sites with conservation priority
value, are protected by the PNH. Considering the number of species already protected by the PNH (62.5 %), its design

is sub-optimal since: a) it does not include 100 % of the species, b) populations of species necessary to maintain
connectivity between eastern Pacific reef systems are excluded, and c) it includes redundant unnecessary sites under
the complementarity principle. Besides suggesting coral-reef conservation areas for the coast of Oaxaca, this study
aims to encourage research on the design of marine protected areas (MPA) in order to establish a network of MPA
which would allow a sustainable management of Mexican reefs

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Published

2017-01-13

How to Cite

López Pérez, R. A., & López García, A. (2017). Identification of priority conservation sites for reef building corals in Oaxaca State, Mexico. HIDROBIOLÓGICA, 18(3), 239–250. Retrieved from https://hidrobiologica.izt.uam.mx/index.php/revHidro/article/view/905

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