With a dramatic decrease of biodiversity as a result of the increase in exploitation of
marine ecosystems, the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) serves as an
important means of protecting those resources. Although there is support for the
effectiveness of these MPAs and MPA networks, there is room for improvement in terms
of MPA management and design. For example, a better understanding of the dispersal
dynamics of targeted species across these MPAs will serve as a more accurate means of
reserve as well as fisheries management. While there have been many methods used to
determine the larval dispersal of a certain species, parentage analysis is becoming the
most robust. In this thesis, I attempt to determine the patterns of self-recruitment and
larval dispersal of the Longfin Grouper (Epinephelus quoyanus) in one focal marine
reserve within the Great Keppel Island group through the method of parentage. For this, I
developed 14 microsatellite markers and with those, genotyped 610 adults as well as 478
juveniles from the study site. These genotypes allowed me to assign offspring to their
potential parents, which then allowed me to measure the self-recruitment, local retention
as well as larval dispersal percentages of this species from and within the reserve. My
results indicate that there is 32% local retention to the reserve while 68% of the assigned
juveniles were dispersed to other areas (4% of which dispersed to another reserve).
Previous studies conducted in the same area showed higher reserve self-recruitment rates
for both Plectropomus maculatus (~30%) and Lutjanus carponotatus (64%) despite their
similar life history traits. The results from this study add to the growing evidence that
dispersal patterns cannot be generalized across marine systems or even between species
within a single system.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:kaust.edu.sa/oai:repository.kaust.edu.sa:10754/336582 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | Al-Salamah, Manalle |
| Contributors | Berumen, Michael L., Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division, Jones, Burton, Kaartvedt, Stein |
| Source Sets | King Abdullah University of Science and Technology |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | 2015-12-01, At the time of archiving, the student author of this thesis opted to temporarily restrict access to it. The full text of this thesis became available to the public after the expiration of the embargo on 2015-12-01. |
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