Identifying priority sites for whale shark ship collision management globally.

The expansion of the world's merchant fleet poses a great threat to the ocean's biodiversity. Collisions between ships and marine megafauna can have population-level consequences for vulnerable species. The Endangered whale shark (Rhincodon typus) shares a circumglobal distribution with this expanding fleet and tracking of movement pathways has shown that large vessel collisions pose a major threat to the species.

Evidence for managing herbivores for reef resilience.

Herbivore management is an important tool for resilience-based approaches to coral reef conservation, and evidence-based science is needed to enact successful management. We synthesized data from multiple monitoring programs in Hawai'i to measure herbivore biomass and benthic condition over a 10-year period preceding any major coral bleaching. We analysed data from 20 242 transects alongside data on 27 biophysical and human drivers and found herbivore biomass was highly variable throughout Hawai'i, with high values in remote locations and the lowest values near population centres.

Impacts of pollution, fishing pressure, and reef rugosity on resource fish biomass in West Hawaii.

Human activities and land-use drivers combine in complex ways to affect coral reef health and, in turn, the diversity and abundance of reef fauna. Here we examine the impacts of different marine protected area (MPA) types, and various human and habitat drivers, on resource fish functional groups (i.e.