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Gravity of human impacts mediates coral reef conservation gains

Overview of attention for article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, June 2018
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (96th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
12 news outlets
blogs
3 blogs
twitter
459 X users
facebook
7 Facebook pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
183 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
473 Mendeley
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Title
Gravity of human impacts mediates coral reef conservation gains
Published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, June 2018
DOI 10.1073/pnas.1708001115
Pubmed ID
Authors

Joshua E. Cinner, Eva Maire, Cindy Huchery, M. Aaron MacNeil, Nicholas A. J. Graham, Camilo Mora, Tim R. McClanahan, Michele L. Barnes, John N. Kittinger, Christina C. Hicks, Stephanie D’Agata, Andrew S. Hoey, Georgina G. Gurney, David A. Feary, Ivor D. Williams, Michel Kulbicki, Laurent Vigliola, Laurent Wantiez, Graham J. Edgar, Rick D. Stuart-Smith, Stuart A. Sandin, Alison Green, Marah J. Hardt, Maria Beger, Alan M. Friedlander, Shaun K. Wilson, Eran Brokovich, Andrew J. Brooks, Juan J. Cruz-Motta, David J. Booth, Pascale Chabanet, Charlotte Gough, Mark Tupper, Sebastian C. A. Ferse, U. Rashid Sumaila, Shinta Pardede, David Mouillot

Abstract

Coral reefs provide ecosystem goods and services for millions of people in the tropics, but reef conditions are declining worldwide. Effective solutions to the crisis facing coral reefs depend in part on understanding the context under which different types of conservation benefits can be maximized. Our global analysis of nearly 1,800 tropical reefs reveals how the intensity of human impacts in the surrounding seascape, measured as a function of human population size and accessibility to reefs ("gravity"), diminishes the effectiveness of marine reserves at sustaining reef fish biomass and the presence of top predators, even where compliance with reserve rules is high. Critically, fish biomass in high-compliance marine reserves located where human impacts were intensive tended to be less than a quarter that of reserves where human impacts were low. Similarly, the probability of encountering top predators on reefs with high human impacts was close to zero, even in high-compliance marine reserves. However, we find that the relative difference between openly fished sites and reserves (what we refer to as conservation gains) are highest for fish biomass (excluding predators) where human impacts are moderate and for top predators where human impacts are low. Our results illustrate critical ecological trade-offs in meeting key conservation objectives: reserves placed where there are moderate-to-high human impacts can provide substantial conservation gains for fish biomass, yet they are unlikely to support key ecosystem functions like higher-order predation, which is more prevalent in reserve locations with low human impacts.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 459 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 473 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 473 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 80 17%
Student > Ph. D. Student 76 16%
Researcher 71 15%
Student > Bachelor 50 11%
Other 24 5%
Other 62 13%
Unknown 110 23%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Environmental Science 142 30%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 114 24%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 22 5%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 11 2%
Social Sciences 10 2%
Other 38 8%
Unknown 136 29%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 386. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 June 2023.
All research outputs
#80,384
of 25,528,120 outputs
Outputs from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
#1,890
of 103,299 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#1,767
of 342,113 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
#38
of 960 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,528,120 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 103,299 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 39.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 342,113 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 960 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.