Ecology and Education in Marine Protected Areas: Insights from Brazil and South America - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 345

Unfortunately, the fi rst of this stations was damaged severely by a Tsunami in 2010
(Harris 2010 ), and the second one experienced many administrative diffi culties.
At the end of the 1990s, in the sub-Antarctic region of Western Patagonia, the
coastal stations of Huinay (39°S, 73°W) in Aysen, and the Omora Ethnobotanical
Park (55°S, 67°W) in Cape Horn, were created in association with the Pontifi cal
Catholic University of Valparaiso and the University of Magallanes, respectively.
In Brazil the programs running for more than a decade are confi ned to two
stations on the Coral Reef Ecosystem of the northeast Brazilian Coast: one devel-
oped 14 years ago, based on the AGRRA Protocol (Leão et al. 2010 ), and the other
17 years ago, based on the Reef Check Program (Hodgson 1999 ). Fortunately, dur-
ing the last 3 years new large initiatives have been developed, including the South
American Research Group on Coastal Ecosystems (SARCE) 1 and ReBentos net-
works of continental and regional (Brazil) scopes, respectively. Discussion is also
under way in the federal agency that controls the Brazilian Federal Reserves or
protected areas (Chico Mendes Institute - ICMBio), as to the development of a pro-
tocol to be employed by stations in all MPAs. However the same is not true for most
state or municipal protected areas. This scenario highlights the need for developing
integrated monitoring programs.
Most methodologies employed in these projects are targeted towards detecting
specifi c responses, and thus only give a limited comprehension of the community
structure. This is a limiting factor not only for detecting variations, but also for
interpreting their causes. These insuffi ciencies are the same that have been consis-
tently criticized by most marine reserves assessments, such as limited sample repli-
cation, non-random reserve placement, or inadequate controls for temporal and
spatial variability (Huntington et al. 2010 ; Huntington and Lirman 2012 ). With the
development of these recent assessments, Brazilian and South American scientists
and decision makers are concerned with the diversity of protocols and efforts. This
challenges the possibilities of comparing and integrating data across sites. SARCE
is the only program with an integrated continental scope, with sites in Chile, Peru,
Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. There is, therefore, the need
for integration also from a regional political view.
Although programs directed towards the monitoring of physical components are
increasing, the integration between biological and physical data, essential to the
understanding of community dynamics and defi ning its main drivers, is still low. To
improve the integration of biophysical studies, proposals such as the integration of
the ReBentos and Coastal Zone Climate networks ( http://www.rebentos.org ; http://
redeclima.ccst.inpe.br ) are being developed.
Linking the planktonic, nektonic, and terrestrial compartments is essential.
Furthermore, marine ecosystem functions are largely determined by matter and
energy transformations mediated by microbial community interaction networks.
It has been found recently that viruses are also a crucial components of marine eco-
systems, and their abundance exceeds bacteria and phytoplankton by at least an
1 The SARCE network was established in 2010 . Today, it includes more than 30 researchers from
9 South American coastal countries and has sampled with a standardized protocol in more than 50
sites around the continent.