Monitoring Functional Groups of Herbivorous Reef Fishes Furthermore while other trophic groups (such as carnivores) may not play a key role in preventing coral-algal phase shifts, there is evidence to suggest that coral reefs with low fishing pressure and relatively intact food webs (including large carnivores that are also vulnerable to overfishing) provide greater overall resilience to threats such as climate change (Sandin et al 2008). Adaptive Management Long term <strong>monitoring</strong> programs must be designed to provide useful information for coral reef conservation and management. In the context of coral reef resilience, <strong>monitoring</strong> programs should provide information on long term trends in herbivorous reef fish populations and other key factors that are critical for maintaining coral reef resilience, to identify the need for management intervention (Adaptive Management: see Glossary). They should also be used to monitor the success of management actions (Wilkinson et al 2003), such as using no-take areas to protect herbivorous reef fish populations. Unfortunately, the results of long term <strong>monitoring</strong> programs are not always available, and managers need to interpret the results of single surveys for management purposes. This is problematic because natural patterns of distribution and abundance can be quite variable (see Interpreting Results above). However, some general advice can be provided. For example, if fishing pressure is low and the density and biomass of herbivorous reef fishes is high relative to that recorded in similar areas, adaptive management to protect these species may not be required. However, if fishing pressure is moderate to high and the density and biomass of herbivorous reef fishes is low relative to that recorded in similar areas, it may be advisable to take a precautionary approach and improve the management of these species to determine if <strong>herbivore</strong> populations respond with increased density and biomass. If they do respond, it may be important to continue to manage fisheries for these species in order to manage for coral reef resilience. However if they do not respond, they may have never been abundant in that area (see Interpreting Results above). Alternatively, overfishing may have been so severe that these species are now recruitment limited and may take a long time to recover (Russ 1991, Russ 2002). In that situation, effective management and long term <strong>monitoring</strong> will be required. SIMPLIFYING THE PROTOCOL This document represents the first attempt to put theory into practice, by designing a protocol to monitor functional groups of <strong>herbivore</strong>s as indicators of coral reef resilience. These methods require a moderate level of technical expertise (e.g. in species identification). If technical expertise is limited, the following modifications can be used to provide a simplified protocol (summarized in Table 2). Using a Lower Taxonomic Level In this protocol, herbivorous reef fishes were assigned to functional groups at the species level for some families (see Table 1). If possible, the best approach is for observers to learn to identify the species that occur in their area (not all species occur in all areas), because <strong>monitoring</strong> at the species level will provide the highest degree of resolution for <strong>monitoring</strong> coral reef resilience. If that is not possible, the method can be modified to a lower taxonomic level by lumping species as described below and summarized in Tables 3 and 4. However, it is important to recognise that this may result in less reliable results. If a lower level of taxonomic resolution is required, <strong>herbivore</strong>s can be assigned to functional groups as follows: • All rudderfishes and batfishes are browsers • All angelfishes of the genus Centropyge are grazers (all other genera are excluded). • All rabbitfishes are grazers/detritivores except S. canaliculatus, which is a browser. All grazers belong to the functional group of grazers/detritivores. For parrotfishes, the best way to approach this is to learn the genera. 49
Monitoring Functional Groups of Herbivorous Reef Fishes • All humpheaded parrotfishes of the genera Bolbometapon, Cetoscarus and Chlorurus are excavators. All individuals >35cm SL should be considered large excavators/bioeroders, while those
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