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Decision support for the Ecosystem-Based Management of a Range-Extending Species in a Global Marine Hotspot Presents Effective Strategies and Challenges

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Abstract

Climate-driven changes in ocean currents have facilitated the range extension of the long-spined sea urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii) from Australia’s mainland to eastern Tasmania over recent decades. Since its arrival, the destructive grazing of the urchin has led to widespread formation of sea urchin ‘barrens’. The loss of habitat, biodiversity and productivity for important commercial reef species in conjunction with the development of an urchin fishery has led to conflicting objectives among some stakeholders that pose complex challenges for regional management. Stakeholders representatives and managers were engaged via a participatory workshop and subsequent one-on-one surveys to trial a structured decision making process to identify effective ecosystem-based management strategies. We directly and indirectly elicited each preferences for nine alternative management strategies by presenting them with the 10-year consequences of each strategy estimated from an ecosystem model of Tasmanian reef communities. These preferences were included in cost-effectiveness scores that were averaged (across stakeholders) to enable strategy ranking from most to least cost-effective. Rankings revealed strategies that included sea urchin removal or translocation of predatory lobsters were the most cost-effective. However, assessment of stakeholders’ individual cost-effectiveness scores showed some disparity among preferences in high ranking strategies. Additionally, inconsistencies in strategy preferences using alternative (direct or indirect) ranking scores reveal conflicting objectives as the most plausible explanation. Our study illustrates how structured decision making can effectively facilitate ecosystem-based management by engaging stakeholders step-by-step towards management strategy implementation and promoting collective learning.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all of the stakeholders who participated in this study. Comments from Dr. Fabio Boschetti greatly improved the quality of the manuscript as did the comments from the journal’s subject editor Dr. Timothy Essington and two anonymous reviewers. The Australian National Network in Marine Science, a collaborative funding initiative between James Cook University, The University of Tasmania, and The University of Western Australia, supported this study. Icons used in figures and tables were sourced from the Noun project and included sea urchin, mallet, fishing net, fishing vessel, lobster, stop, measure and seaweed that should be credited to Vega Asensio, Marie Van den Broeck, Ron Scott, Luis Prado, Baboon designs, project hayat, hafiudin and Graham Jefferson, respectively.

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Author notes

  1. LR, GP and SF conceived and planned the study. LR, MM, IP, SJ, ST, KH, SN, AH and MH contributed to method development and/or implementation. LR and MM performed analyses and generated the results. LR prepared the figures and manuscript with substantive inputs from MM and edits from all other authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, Hobart, TAS, 7001, Australia

    Lucy M. Robinson, Martin P. Marzloff, Gretta Pecl, Sean Tracey, Klaas Hartmann & Marcus Haward

  2. Oceans Institute and Oceans Graduate School, The University of Western Australia, Perth, 6009, Australia

    Lucy M. Robinson

  3. CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, TAS, 7000, Australia

    Ingrid van Putten & Alistair J. Hobday

  4. Centre for Marine Socioecology, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, 7000, Australia

    Ingrid van Putten, Gretta Pecl, Sarah Jennings, Alistair J. Hobday, Sean Tracey, Marcus Haward & Stewart Frusher

  5. CSIRO Land and Water, Dutton Park, QLD, 4102, Australia

    Sam Nicol

  6. DYNECO Benthic Ecology Laboratory (LEBCO), CS 10070, IFREMER Centre de Bretagne, 29280, Plouzané, France

    Martin P. Marzloff

  7. CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Lucy M. Robinson

  8. Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, 7000, Australia

    Sarah Jennings

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  1. Lucy M. Robinson
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Correspondence to Lucy M. Robinson.

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Robinson, L.M., Marzloff, M.P., van Putten, I. et al. Decision support for the Ecosystem-Based Management of a Range-Extending Species in a Global Marine Hotspot Presents Effective Strategies and Challenges. Ecosystems 26, 232–251 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-020-00560-1

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