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New approaches are required to undertake the substantial task of monitoring ongoing fishing activity in marine conservation areas to ensure conservation goals are achieved. To address this need, we applied previously developed, yet currently underused, vessel tracking methods based on Automatic Identification System (AIS) and aerial surveillance (“flyovers”) to Canada's Pacific marine conservation areas from 2012 to 2019. We used satellite and terrestrial‐based AIS receivers and flyover‐based visual observations to estimate illegal and legal fishing activity after 185 conservation area (CA) enactments (i.e., static, geographically defined areas with fishing regulations). We compared the effectiveness in detecting fishing activity between the AIS‐ and flyover‐based methods, and used the latter to determine that 93% of vessels were actively fishing in CAs without AIS. The AIS‐based method still detected 3303 h of fishing in CAs after enactment, and both methods estimated 22%–24% of fishing activity in CAs was illegal. The application of these methods also shed light on the complexity of fishing regulations across CAs (i.e., varying and CA‐specific restrictions). This highlighted the need to better align vessel tracking fishing gear classifications with CA regulation specifications, and conversely to simplify regulations (e.g., no‐take), for more accurate monitoring and evaluation moving forward. The international expansion of marine conservation areas is creating an ever‐growing need for spatially and temporally extensive methods to monitor and evaluate fishing activity to ensure the effectiveness of conservation efforts. We present the use of AIS‐ and flyover‐based methods to assess illegal and legal fishing across 8 years for Canada's Pacific marine conservation areas with fishing regulations. Our application of these vessel tracking methods builds on their utility and demonstrates their use for evaluating fishing effort specific to conservation area regulations.

Expansion of marine conservation areas (CA) necessitates resource‐efficient and achievable strategies for monitoring and evaluation of ongoing fishing activity at national levels. To demonstrate and explore such a strategy, we conducted the first extensive analysis of fishing activity within Canada's static, geographically defined marine CAs with fishing regulations (n = 264 areas). We used 8 years of Automatic Identification System data to estimate fishing effort across three oceans and conducted temporal and spatial comparisons specific to each CA's regulations and enactment date. We addressed questions on CA effectiveness, fishing displacement, fishing the line behavior, and relationships between fishing activity and spatial CA attributes. We estimated 22,000 h of fishing activity within CAs after enactments, 22% of which was identified as illegal. CA effectiveness appeared to be lowest for Atlantic CAs based on illegal fishing effort density within CAs. Fishing displacement and fishing the line was generally not apparent as buffer areas around CAs tended to already have higher fishing effort prior to enactments. CA effectiveness and responses to CAs varied considerably, as was visualized using timeseries plots and maps developed for each CA. Our evaluation of a nation's full suite of CAs provides managers with a foundation and approach for continued monitoring and reporting. We assessed the management effectiveness of marine conservation area enactments and impacts on fishing activity across Canada's three oceans. Fishing effort was estimated from AIS vessel tracking data from 2012 to 2019 and applied to closure specific regulations to estimate illegal, legal, and “remainder” (i.e., potentially illegal or legal) fishing activity. We discuss the implications of ongoing illegal and legal activity and the importance of such monitoring to ensure conservation goals are met.

Marine biogenic habitats—habitats created by living organisms—provide essential ecosystem functions and services, such as physical structuring, nutrient cycling, biodiversity support, and increases in primary, secondary, and tertiary production. With the growing trend toward ecosystem approaches to marine conservation and fisheries management, there is greater emphasis on rigorously designed habitat monitoring programs. However, such programs are challenging to design for data‐limited habitats for which underlying ecosystem processes are poorly understood. To provide guidance in this area, we reviewed approaches to benthic assessments across well‐studied marine biogenic habitats and identified common themes related to indicator selection, sampling methods, and survey design. Biogenic habitat monitoring efforts largely focus on the characteristics, distribution, and ecological function of foundation species, but may target other habitat‐forming organisms, especially when community shifts are observed or expected, as well as proxies of habitat status, such as indicator species. Broad‐scale methods cover large spatial areas and are typically used to examine the spatial configuration of habitats, whereas fine‐scale methods tend to be laborious and thus restricted to small survey areas, but provide high‐resolution data. Recent, emerging methods enhance the capabilities of surveying large areas at high spatial resolution and improve data processing efficiency, bridging the gap between broad‐ and fine‐scale methods. Although sampling design selection may be limited by habitat characteristics and available resources, it is critically important to ensure appropriate matching of ecological, observational, and analytical scales. Drawing on these common themes, we propose a structured, iterative approach to designing monitoring programs for marine biogenic habitats that allows for rigorous data collection to inform management strategies, even when data and resource limitations are present. A practical application of this approach is illustrated using glass sponge reefs—a recently discovered and data‐limited habitat type—as a case study. We reviewed approaches to benthic assessments across marine biogenic habitats and identified common themes related to indicator selection, sampling methods, and survey design. We then proposed a systematic, iterative process for establishing a monitoring program for data‐limited biogenic habitats and illustrated its application using glass sponge reefs as a case study.

Foundation species support communities across a wide range of ecosystems. Non-trophic interactions are considered the primary way foundation species influence communities, with their trophic interactions having little impact on community structure. Here we assess the relative trophic importance of a foundation species and assess how its abundance can influence food web topology. Using empirical data and published trophic interactions we built food web models for 20 glass sponge reefs to examine how average live reef-building sponge abundance (proxied by percent cover) at the reef level is correlated with community structure and food web network topology. Then, using a generalized food web model and stable isotope data we examined the relative importance of sponges. Sponges were consumed by all species examined and contributed significantly to their diets. Additionally, sponges were the second most important node in our generalized reef food web. Several metrics of food web topology (connectance, clustering, and median degree) and community structure exhibited a threshold response to reef-building sponge cover, with the change point occurring between 8 and 13% live sponge cover. Below this threshold, as average sponge cover increases, the consumers observed on a reef rely on fewer sources and are consumed by fewer predators, resulting in food webs that are more clustered and less connected. Above the threshold, as average sponge cover increases, the reefs’ food webs are less clustered and more connected, with consumers utilizing more sources and having more predators. This corresponds with the finding that several generalist predators (e.g., rockfishes) are associated with high sponge cover reefs. Our results are not consistent with previous reports that increasing foundation species abundance decreases connectance in food webs. We propose that the influence of foundation species on food web topology may be dependent on palatability, and therefore relative trophic importance, of the foundation species. Finally, our findings have important implications for sponge reef conservation and management, as they suggest that reefs below the 10% sponge cover threshold support different communities than high live sponge cover reefs.

The global extent of marine protected areas (MPAs) is increasing as nations strive to meet UN conservation targets, yet non-native species (NNS) are a critically overlooked stressor that threatens MPA conservation goals. Despite evidence that marine NNS affect protected species and habitats, there is limited understanding of the pervasiveness of this threat and the extent to which resource managers are responding to it. We disseminated a questionnaire targeting MPA practitioners and scientists to determine the overall state of knowledge and perception of NNS in MPAs. We received 151 responses from individuals in 47 countries and territories, including a total of 116 MPAs of which 73 were reported to have NNS present. Although NNS are a prevalent issue in MPAs and are the subject of some monitoring, management, and research, preventative measures are largely absent, so that more focused attention on NNS will be required to achieve conservation goals.

Coastal infrastructure provides extensive habitat for marine nonindigenous species (“NIS”), especially biofouling species. Ecosystem transplants can arise when static maritime structures (“SMS”) are relocated under slow towing speeds following long periods of biofouling accumulation. Translocations of SMS occur more often than acknowledged and represent a high-risk vector of marine NIS that is largely overlooked and unregulated. We compiled geolocations and movement patterns for oil platforms, derelict/obsolete vessels, barges, dry docks, floating lodges, homes and docks, aquaculture gear and buoys for the NE Pacific coast. We related these data to NIS richness within the region and to global examples of SMS movement. Our review and synthesis of SMS, paired with biofouling surveys before and after dock towing events, reveal the growing NIS vector opportunities resulting from sprawling coastal infrastructure. As coastal development continues apace in the Anthropocene, this emerging management challenge will require strong frameworks and workable solutions for a global issue that currently lacks incentives to prevent species transfers and invasions.

The largest known glass sponge reefs in Canada are within the Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound Glass Sponge Reefs Marine Protected Area (HSQCS-MPA) in British Columbia. However, human activities outside the core MPA boundaries, such as trawling, can create plumes of suspended sediments capable of travelling large distances. We studied the response of 3 glass sponge species to changes in suspended sediment concentrations (SSCs) at 170 m depth inside the HSQCS-MPA. Two species reduced excurrent flow rate in response to natural and experimentally induced increases in suspended sediment. Background suspended sediment levels were low and showed little variation (2.71 ± 0.09 mg l-1, mean ± SD). Species varied in the threshold of SSCs that triggered arrests. Sediment concentrations of 2.8-6.4 mg l-1 caused arrests in Rhabdocalyptus dawsoni, while Heterochone calyx did not arrest until concentrations reached 5-10 mg l-1. Very small, but prolonged increases of suspended sediments (<1 mg l-1 for R. dawsoni and 3.2 mg l-1 for H. calyx) caused arrests of several hours in R. dawsoni and prolonged periods of reduced flow in H. calyx. No arrests were observed in Farrea occa, even after repeated exposures up to 57 mg l-1. A sediment transport model showed that sediment concentrations can remain high enough to affect sponge behaviour as far as 2.39 km from the source of the plume. The results highlight the importance of understanding the biology of different species for establishment of adequate boundaries in MPAs.

Structured biogenic habitats are biodiversity hotspots that host a wide range of soniferous species. Yet in deep-water systems, their soundscapes are largely undescribed. In September of 2016 we deployed 3 underwater acoustic recorders for approximately 4 d in and around a glass sponge reef in the Outer Gulf Islands sponge reef fishing closure, British Columbia, Canada. The 2 recordings from the reef (within and at the margin of the reef footprint) were significantly louder in the mid- and high-frequency bands (100 to 1000 Hz and 1 to 10 kHz, respectively) than the recordings made in soft-bottom habitat away from the reef. These frequency bands are known to correlate with aspects of the biological community as well as benthic cover in shallow-water systems; visual surveys conducted in the area confirmed the presence of several known soniferous species. More fish sounds were recorded on the reef compared to the off-reef site. Our results suggest that this glass sponge reef has a distinct soundscape and that future work linking aspects of the soundscape to the ecology of the ecosystem are warranted.

Glass sponge reefs are endemic to the continental shelf waters of British Columbia and Alaska, where they form complex three-dimensional habitats used by a variety of commercially important fish and invertebrate species. The Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound Glass Sponge Reefs Marine Protected Area (HSQCS-MPA) was designated in February 2017 to protect 2,410 km² of reef habitat. Efforts to establish baseline information regarding reef-associated taxa in the new MPA have documented the diversity of megafauna in detail, but little is understood of the cryptic epifauna inhabiting hidden crevices within the reefs, and even less is understood of larval recruitment, the key reproductive process maintaining long-term reef health and stability. We collected specimens of a reef-building glass sponge, Farrea occa, from the HSQCS-MPA and described the diversity of their epifauna. Five hundred and two organisms from six phyla were documented, including 84 sponges from three classes. We found several glass sponges: known juvenile reef builders (two Aphrocallistes vastus and two Heterochone calyx); the lyssacine sponge Leucopsacus scoliodocus, previously known in Canadian waters only from Jervis Inlet; and an unidentified dictyonine sponge previously unknown to waters of British Columbia. Also present were the carnivorous sponge Lycopodina occidentalis, 11 individuals of Desmacella austini, evidence for a new species in the subgenus Haliclona (Flagellia), and a clathrinid calcareous sponge. The growth stages we observed suggest multiple settlement events by glass sponge larvae between February and early March. Of the 502 invertebrates, 460 were attached to dead sponge skeleton despite live tissue being much more available as substrate. This study highlights trends in recruitment at sponge reefs, explores factors that may affect larval settlement, describes new sponge associations, and provides the first description of the range of macrofauna found on glass sponges, acting as a baseline for continued monitoring of the MPA.