Effects of Excessive Fishing on Coral Reef Ecosystems and Biodiversity

Abstract

Coral reef ecosystems and biodiversity (CRE&B) are vital for humid and semi-tropical coastal populations, small-island emerging economies, and native people since they offer essential ecological services, including food supply, economic possibilities, carbon storage, and storm shelter. Excessive fishing may significantly destabilize CRE&B globally while gathering at acceptable levels can enhance fish yields without harming CRE. The dispersion capabilities of CRE organisms result in densely interconnected CRE&B of reef fisheries relying on geographically explicit mechanisms, including the ripple effect and illegal fishing inside ocean-safeguarded zones. Nevertheless, a significant portion of the work about CRE&B preservation and governance has mostly focused on excessive fishing at a regional level, neglecting the impact of varying geographical trends in fishing intensity on reef ecology at territorial and local scales. A linked human-ecology framework has been developed to assess the responses of CRE and vegetarian reef-associated fish to excessive aquaculture at various geographical scales. Coral and reef-associated species exhibit contrasting responses to habitat destruction caused by excessive fishing, and a possible spillover impact from marine protection zones into excessively fished regions benefits coral species far less than it does for reef fish