@article {422,
	title = {Links between sex change and fish densities in marine protected areas},
	journal = { Biological Conservation},
	year = {2007},
	abstract = {<p>Sex change is widespread among marine fishes, including many species  that are fished heavily, and is thought to be of conservation concern  under some circumstances. As such, an important question in conservation  is whether the implementation of marine protected areas (MPAs), which  is a commonly used marine conservation tool, works as effectively for  sex-changers as for non-sex-changers. To address this issue, we used  meta-analyses of the ratio of fish abundances inside vs. outside MPAs to  determine whether sex change affects the extent to which fish densities  respond to protection. When all data were considered, there were  similar responses to protection irrespective of reproductive mode.  However, when analyses were restricted to older reserves (at least 10  years{\textquoteright} protection), female-first sex-changers consistently benefited  from protection.Non-sex-changers and male-first sex-changers showed more  variable responses to protection and, as a result, there were no  significant differences between fish with different reproductive modes  in their overall response to protection. The same results were observed  when the effects of fisheries status (targeted vs. not targeted) were  controlled.Our results support the use of MPAs as important components  of conservation and demonstrate that old reserves are most consistently  beneficial to female-first sex-changing species. Finally, our results  highlight the fact that some effects of protection are only detectable  after several generations.</p>},
	keywords = {Atlantic, conservation, density, fish, fish abundance, fish density, fishery, Indian ocean, marine protected area, Mediterranean sea, Pacific, protected area, protection, protection effectiveness, protection measure, review, size},
	author = {P-P. Molloy and I-M. C{\^o}t{\'e} and I. Mosqueira and M-J-G. Gage and J-D. Renoyls}
}
