Testing resilience in Marine Protected Areas using storm disturbance in Lyme Bay, SW England

Resilience, namely how an ecosystem can absorb disturbance and how quickly it can recover, is a key component of ecosystem health. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are the major tool for marine conservation management to help provide such resilience. It is perceived that MPAs increase the resilience of ecosystems to natural and anthropogenic stressors, for example against the effects of climate change, by having a wider range of organisms within the MPA that can provide the necessary ecosystem functions. In such a system, if one species is lost others will be available to maintain that function. This ecosystem resilience has two aspects: capacity to tolerate disturbance (known as sensitivity or resistance) and ability to rebuild after a disturbance when necessary (recovery). Resistance can be viewed as the ability of an ecosystem to absorb disturbance before changing its structure, while recovery relates to the rate of return to a steady state following perturbation. Although much has been discussed about the resilience value of MPAs and their networks (primarily in the tropics), it is difficult to formally test due to the inherent role of MPAs to protect habitats from disturbance, and the need for extensive pre-disturbance baseline data.

A great opportunity has arisen to assess this claim of MPA resilience and test whether resilience increases with MPA age (and thus period of protection). During January and February 2014, a series of storms swept the North Atlantic, generating some of the highest waves ever recorded in Western Europe with exceptionally long wave periods. The south-west coasts of the UK were heavily impacted by these storms, including Lyme Bay, an area which includes the UK's first large MPA designated in 2008 to exclude towed fishing gear from a 206 km2 area in order to protect high-biodiversity reef systems (including species like Pink Sea Fans and Ross Coral that provide habitat for many different species such as young fishes and scallops). Prior to this designation, smaller voluntary closures existed and subsequently in 2012 the MPA was enlarged when it became a Special Area of Conservation. Since 2008 the seabed has been monitored to assess its recovery, providing a unique baseline data set. We therefore have a range of times since protection, plus areas still fished, from which we have a very good understanding of the seabed animals in order to explore how the major natural disturbance caused by the unparalleled storm activity has affected the seabed.

Using a towed underwater flying HD video camera along 200 m transects, we will survey 60 sites across four different levels of MPA protection, using locations that have been monitored over the previous 5 years to allow pre-storm comparison. We will analyse the videos for the whole transect to record the number of important functional group indicator organisms present and also a more detailed analysis of 30 frame grabs per transect; indicator species will also be measured to see any change in size over time. From this analysis we will be able to assess the functional diversity of all these sites after the storm damage and compare it with pre-storm surveys, thus assessing whether sites that have been protected longer, and with higher overall diversity, are more resilient to this major natural disturbance.

The results will be important for aiding our understanding of how such seabed communities are impacted by natural disturbance, how resilient these communities are and how much difference protection within a MPA makes to boosting this resilience. As this has consequences for marine conservation, management and fisheries policy, the results are of great value for organisations such as Natural England, local Fisheries Associations and conservation charities who are partners in this project.

Lyme Bay is at the forefront of MPA work in the UK, being the first large designated protected area in our coastal seas and having both a wide range of interested stakeholders and with comprehensive background knowledge of the ecosystems available from previous research and monitoring programmes. Subsequently, a range of organisations will benefit greatly from the data that will enhance our understanding of the responses of the seabed to large-scale disturbance and how MPAs may moderate that impact. We have five project partners, all of whom will find the results valuable. Due to the boundary designation, two Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Associations have responsibility for managing activity within Lyme Bay and both are supporting the project (Southern and Devon & Severn IFCAs) as the results will benefit the development of their understanding of the region and thus inform their management policies. This in turn will impact at a national level through our partner Natural England and other partner members of the Defra family (MMO and Defra itself), all of whom are working within Lyme Bay to help guide the designation, monitoring and management of MPAs around the country. The results are also of great interest to our partner the Blue Marine Foundation which is running a unique and pioneering project within Lyme Bay to bring together local fishermen and conservation and enforcement agencies with the aim of providing a sustainable way forward for fishing activity within protected areas. Understanding the scale of impact of such natural disturbances will help put impact of fishing activity into context.
Knowledge gained should be of interest to wider beneficiaries, including our partner Devon Wildlife Trust and its Dorset equivalent, fishermen's organisations (on the relative scale of natural and anthropogenic impacts) and local recreational diving companies.

The Marine Institute has developed a network of connections within the region that will aid dissemination and communication of the results of this project. Attrill sits on the Lyme Bay Steering Group which manages the Lyme Bay Fisheries and Conservation Reserve (www.lymebayreserve.co.uk) and is chaired by the Blue Marine Foundation, so a primary route of local dissemination will be through this group, with the BMF using their publicity machine (e.g. through Charles Clover) to further utilise and spread results of the research within a range of media. Attrill also sits on the boards of the Devon and Plymouth Local Nature Partnerships, allowing further forums to disseminate the results to the wider regional public. Together with local Wildlife Trusts informing their members, these outlets will allow the research to reach 1000s of interested persons. Strategies and structures for such dissemination will be developed with partners during the project ready for utilising the results when available within the last month of the project.