Create a Marine Protected Area or set levels of legal protection where natural climate refugia occur to further promote the persistence and recovery of species facing climate change

Overall effectiveness category No evidence found (no assessment)
Number of studies: 0
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Effectiveness

not assessed
Certainty

not assessed
Harms

not assessed

Calculating overall effectiveness category

Background information and definitions

Anthropogenic climate change is driven by atmospheric gases, including carbon dioxides (IPCC 2013). Many marine species are vulnerable to climate change and likely to be impacted by it in the future (Hoegh-Guldberg & Bruno 2010). Climate refugia are areas naturally relatively buffered from contemporary climate change over time and that can enable the persistence of species and habitats (Keppel et al. 2015; Morelli et al. 2016). Marine protected areas restricting specific impactful activities, or other areas where legal protection or restriction occur, could be created where such refugia occur, to further enhance the refugia effect and promote the persistence and recovery of species facing climate change (Game et al. 2011; Green et al. 2014). Evidence for other interventions related to the creation of marine protected areas is summarised under “Habitat Protection”.

_{Hoegh-Guldberg O. & Bruno J.F. (2010) The impact of climate change on the world’s marine ecosystems. Science, 328, 1523–1528.}

_{IPCC (2013) Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex & P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.}

_{Game E.T., Lipsett-Moore G., Saxon E., Peterson N. & Sheppard S. (2011) Incorporating climate change adaptation into national conservation assessments. Global Change Biology, 17, 3150–3160.}

_{Green A.L., Fernandes L., Almany G., Abesamis R., McLeod E., Aliño P.M., White A.T., Salm R., Tanzer J. & Pressey R.L. (2014) Designing marine reserves for fisheries management, biodiversity conservation, and climate change adaptation. Coastal Management, 42, 143–159.}

_{Keppel G., Mokany K., Wardell-Johnson G.W., Phillips B.L., Welbergen J.A. & Reside A.E. (2015) The capacity of refugia for conservation planning under climate change. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 13, 106–112.}

_{Morelli T.L., Daly C., Dobrowski S.Z., Dulen D.M., Ebersole J.L., Jackson S.T., Lundquist J.D., Millar C.I., Maher S.P., Monahan W.B. & Nydick K.R. (2016) Managing climate change refugia for climate adaptation. PLoS One, 11, p.e0159909.}

Key messages

We found no studies that evaluated the effects of creating a marine protected area or setting levels of legal protection where natural climate refugia occur to further promote the persistence and recovery of species facing climate change on subtidal benthic invertebrate populations.

‘We found no studies’ means that we have not yet found any studies that have directly evaluated this intervention during our systematic journal and report searches. Therefore, we have no evidence to indicate whether or not the intervention has any desirable or harmful effects.

About key messages

Key messages provide a descriptive index to studies we have found that test this intervention.

Studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. When making decisions based on this evidence, you should consider factors such as study size, study design, reported metrics and relevance of the study to your situation, rather than simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation.

Please cite as:

Lemasson, A.J., Pettit, L.R., Smith, R.K. & Sutherland, W.J. (2020) Subtidal Benthic Invertebrate Conservation. Pages 635-732 in: W.J. Sutherland, L.V. Dicks, S.O. Petrovan & R.K. Smith (eds) What Works in Conservation 2020. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.

Where has this evidence come from?

List of journals searched by synopsis

All the journals searched for all synopses

This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:

Subtidal Benthic Invertebrate Conservation

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