Mismatches in scale between highly mobile marine megafauna and marine protected areas

• DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2022.897104
• Publication Date: 2022-07-20T04:40:07Z
• Authors: Melinda G. Conners; Nicholas B. Sisson; Pierre D. Agamboue; Philip W. Atkinson; Alastair M. M. Ba...; Scott R. Benson; Barbara A. Block; Steven J. Bograd; Pablo Bordino; W. D. Bowen; Paul Brickle; Ignacio M. Bruno; Victoria González...; Cory D. Champagne; Daniel E. Crocker; Daniel P. Costa; Tiffany M. Dawson; Tomohiro Deguchi; Heidi Dewar; Philip D. Doherty; Tomo Eguchi; Angela Formia; Brendan J. Godley; Rachel T. Graham; Christian Gredzens; Kristen M. Hart; Lucy A. Hawkes; Suzanne Henderson; Robert William Henry; Luis A. Hückstädt; Ladd M. Irvine; Sarah S. Kienle; Carey E. Kuhn; Damian Lidgard; Stephanie A. Loredo; Bruce R. Mate; Kristian Metcalfe; Jacob Nzegoue; Carmen K. Kouerey...; Rachael A. Orben; Kiyoaki Ozaki; Richard Parnell; Elizabeth P. Pike; Patrick W. Robinson; Howard C. Rosenbaum; Fumio Sato; Scott A. Shaffer; Donna J. Shaver; Samantha E. Simmons; Brian J. Smith; Guy-Philippe Soun...; Robert M. Suryan; David R. Thompson; Megan Tierney; Dominic Tilley; Hillary S. Young; Victoria Warwick-...; Michael J. Weise; Randall S. Wells; Bradley P. Wilkinson; Matthew J. Witt; Sara M. Maxwell
• Keywords: Marine protected area; Megafauna; Marine life; Marine reserve

Marine protected areas (MPAs), particularly large MPAs, are increasing in number and size around the globe part to facilitate conservation of marine megafauna under assumption that large-scale MPAs better align with vagile life histories; however, this alignment is not well established. Using a global tracking dataset from 36 species across five taxa, chosen reflect span home range highly mobile megafauna, we show most too small encompass complete ranges species. Based on alone, 40% existing could smallest ranged species, while only < 1% those largest Further, where overlapped real geographic space, encompassed 5% core used by all Despite being much larger than demonstrate how benefits still likely accrue targeting seasonal aggregations critical history stages through other management techniques.