Fig 1.
Marine protected areas (red) and adjacent areas, where fisheries are allowed (green), at three village sites (Votua, Vatu-o-lalai, Namada) along Fiji’s Coral Coast.
Fig 2.
Box plot for fish density and biomass (120 m-2) of four categories of herbivorous fishes (browsers, grazers, excavating parrotfishes, and scraping parrotfishes) in MPAs and adjacent non-MPAs at three village sites (Votua, Vatu-o-lalai, and Namada) along the Coral Coast of Fiji. * signals the comparisons in which the 95% credible interval indicates a significant effect of protection status.
Fig 3.
Density and biomass (120 m-2) of five categories of Non-herbivores. Study sites and symbols as in Fig 2.
Table 1.
Deviance information criterion (DIC) for models including (Full model) or not (Reduced) protections status as a predictor variable.
Smaller DIC signal preferred models (in bold).
Table 2.
Model results for the observed richness of herbivores and non-herbivores.
Parameter estimates (posterior mean), with 95% credible interval (CI) and effective sample size (ESS), for each level and interactions between levels of fixed factors (and variance associated with random factors). Effect sizes of the interaction site:status are relative to benchmark levels (non-MPAs to MPAs of each site). Text in bold highlight the effects deemed significant according to the 95% CI.
Fig 4.
Rates of substratum grazing by parrotfishes (% grazed area d-1, mean ± SE) in MPAs and adjacent non-MPAs at three village sites (Votua, Vatu-o-lalai, and Namada) along the Coral Coast of Fiji. * and ** indicate paired bars with significant (p < 0.05) or highly significant (p < 0.001) differences, respectively. Note the different scales of the y-axes.
Fig 5.
Rates of macroalgal removal by herbivores (% of algae consumed in 5 h, mean ± SE). Study sites and symbols as in Fig 2.
Fig 6.
Percentage cover (mean ± SE) of four categories of benthos (scleractinian corals, macroalgae, eplithic algal matrix and others) in MPAs and adjacent non-MPAs, at three village sites (Votua, Vatu-o-lalai, Namada) along Fiji’s Coral Coast. * and ** indicate, respectively, paired bars that differ significantly (p < 0.05) and highly significantly (p < 0.001).
Fig 7.
Density (mean ± SE) of coral recruits m-2 of plot area (see text for details). Study sites and symbols as in Fig 2.