Name: Helder Coelho Guabiroba Júnior
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 28/06/2018
Advisor:

Name	Role
Ciro Colodetti Vilar de Araujo	Co-advisor *
Jean-Christophe Joyeux	Advisor *

Examining board:

Name	Role
Agnaldo Silva Martins	Internal Alternate *
Angelo Fraga Bernardino	Internal Examiner *
Carlos Eduardo Leite Ferreira	External Alternate *
Hudson Tercio Pinheiro	External Examiner *
Jean-Christophe Joyeux	Advisor *

Summary: Abstract
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are regarded as an important tool for coral reefs conservation. The growing concern of public awareness with the environment created massive tourism activities inside MPAs worldwide, although, the effects of human disturbances still poorly known. The aim of this work is to investigate the role of different levels of protection (i.e. visited and non-visited sites) in shaping distribution of benthic cover and reef fish community structure patterns in the Abrolhos Archipelago. Strip transects were conducted for benthic cover (photo-quadrats) and fish (visual census) sampling and the community descriptors were tested for spatial and temporal variation through multivariate analyzes. The results shows that fish biomass was more equally distributed between trophic groups in non-visited sites. Moreover, these sites showed higher biomass and abundance of piscivores and herbivores and more percentage of corals than visited sites. Human presence in MPAs was shown to be pervasive for reef communities since the differences observed between levels of protection were independent of environmental variables. Despite the fact that protection from fishing alone can ensure conservation benefits, the establishment of no-entry zones could improve MPAs effectiveness.
Key-words: reef fishes; piscivores; Abrolhos; human presence.