TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kessel, Steven Thomas
A1  - Elamin, Nasreldin Alhasan
A1  - Yurkowski, David James
A1  - Chekchak, Tarik
A1  - Walter, Ryan Patrick
A1  - Klaus, Rebecca
A1  - Hill, Graham
A1  - Hussey, Nigel Edward
T1  - Conservation of reef manta rays (Manta alfredi) in a UNESCO World Heritage Site : large-scale island development or sustainable tourism?
T2  - PLoS one
N2  - A large reef manta ray (Manta alfredi) aggregation has been observed off the north Sudanese Red Sea coast since the 1950s. Sightings have been predominantly within the boundaries of a marine protected area (MPA), which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2016. Contrasting economic development trajectories have been proposed for the area (small-scale ecotourism and large-scale island development). To examine space-use, Wildlife Computers® SPOT 5 tags were secured to three manta rays. A two-state switching Bayesian state space model (BSSM), that allowed movement parameters to switch between resident and travelling, was fit to the recorded locations, and 50% and 95% kernel utilization distributions (KUD) home ranges calculated. A total of 682 BSSM locations were recorded between 30 October 2012 and 6 November 2013. Of these, 98.5% fell within the MPA boundaries; 99.5% for manta 1, 91.5% for manta 2, and 100% for manta 3. The BSSM identified that all three mantas were resident during 99% of transmissions, with 50% and 95% KUD home ranges falling mainly within the MPA boundaries. For all three mantas combined (88.4%), and all individuals (manta 1–92.4%, manta 2–64.9%, manta 3–91.9%), the majority of locations occurred within 15 km of the proposed large-scale island development. Results indicated that the MPA boundaries are spatially appropriate for manta rays in the region, however, a close association to the proposed large-scale development highlights the potential threat of disruption. Conversely, the focused nature of spatial use highlights the potential for reliable ecotourism opportunities.
KW  - Islands
KW  - Reefs
KW  - Red Sea
KW  - Turbidity
KW  - Conservation science
KW  - Coral reefs
KW  - Sudan
KW  - Marine conservation
Y1  - 2017
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/45124
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-451248
SN  - 1932-6203
N1  - Copyright: © 2017 Kessel et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
VL  - 12
IS  - (10): e0185419
SP  - 1
EP  - 16
PB  - PLoS
CY  - Lawrence, Kan.
ER  -