Source to sink: Modeling marine population connectivity across scales in the Main Hawaiian Islands
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2024
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Coral reef ecosystems are some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, and are culturally, economically, and ecologically valuable. In Hawaiʻi, coral reefs provide a host of ecosystem goods and services, including but not limited to commercial and subsistence fishing, coastal protection, and recreation. These reefs provide an estimated >7 million meals per year, and have been valued at $33.57 billion based on ecosystem services. Given the importance of Hawaiʻi reef-associated fisheries for subsistence, cultural continuity, and food security, effective management of these ecosystems is essential in the face of ongoing environmental decline due to both local and global stressors. Connectivity is a crucial component of the long-term functioning of a network of marine managed areas, but is seldom included in spatial planning despite its inclusion in global conservation goals. In this dissertation, I combined biophysical larval dispersal modeling with network analysis to describe potential connectivity patterns across scales. The goals of my dissertation were to model and describe fine-scale patterns of connectivity around the island of Molokaʻi, with particular focus on the role of protected areas (Chapter 2), expand the model to the entire Main Hawaiian Islands, examine the effects of behavior on larval dispersal, and compare model output to population genomics data (Chapter 3), and use network analysis of the historic Indigenous management regime (the moku system) to highlight key potential connectivity hubs (Chapter 4). Species-specific patterns of connectivity were present in both the Molokaʻi and Main Hawaiian Islands models; dispersal distance was correlated with pelagic larval duration, but rank-order did not match exactly. I also found that active-behavior models differed significantly from passive models for this region, and that active-behavior models outperformed passive models when compared to multispecies population genomic data. Finally, I used network metrics to estimate source-sink dynamics for both the Molokaʻi and Main Hawaiian Islands models, identifying potential diverse source sites and multigenerational stepping-stones. These results provide stakeholders and managers with crucial information for current and future marine spatial planning in the region and highlight opportunities for future research.
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Ecology, biophysical modeling, conservation, ecology, larval dispersal, marine biology, population connectivity
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145 pages
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