ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Coral Reef Research
Spatiotemporal variability in reef ecology and herbivore impacts in the East Portland Special Fishery Conservation Area, northeast Jamaica (2017-2024)
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Texas at Austin Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Austin, United States
- 2Alligator Head Foundation, Port Antonio, Jamaica
- 3Mangroves Plus Project, The Forestry Department, Government of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica
- 4The University of the West Indies at Mona Department of Chemistry, Mona, Jamaica
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The East Portland Special Fishery Conservation Area is a no-take marine reserve in northeast Jamaica, established in 2016. The region is historically understudied and lacks ecological data critical for evaluating conservation outcomes. This study establishes baseline information on benthic, fish, and invertebrate communities across the 6 km2 sanctuary, from 2017 to 2024 and assesses the role of herbivores in shaping reef recovery. Monitoring results indicate that fish size and abundance increased between 2017 and 2019 following active enforcement, but these gains declined by 2022 as patrols decreased. Herbivores such as Diadema antillarum and parrotfish were key in limiting macroalgal dominance, although the intensity of their impact differed among sites. Differences in community composition reflect site-specific variation, indicating that local conditions influence recovery dynamics within the sanctuary. Overall, the EPSFCA demonstrates that consistent enforcement and herbivore protection can promote partial but fragile reef recovery, emphasizing the need for sustained management to rebuild resilience. These results provide a rare long-term assessment for Jamaica’s northeast coast and offer a benchmark for evaluating future conservation outcomes.
Keywords: Coral reef monitoring, Herbivore abundance, Jamaica, Marine Protected Area, community composition
Received: 13 Aug 2025; Accepted: 05 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Williams, Henry, Martindale and Gordon-Smith. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Claire M Williams, cmw3@utexas.edu
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