ABSTRACT
History, location, and dynamics have led in the Galápagos Islands to a complex mix of tropical and temperate marine and coastal ecosystems. Across the 133,000 km2 of the Galápagos Marine Reserve (GMR) entire marine communities can shift significantly within and between years, strongly influenced by the productive water masses that drive and define them. Straddling the equator and bathed by westward flowing surface currents and nutrient rich upwelled water, the GMR represents a particularly fascinating oceanographic microcosm, a significant sanctuary zone from the effects of industrial fishing and forms over 90% of the Marine Managed Area (MMA) within the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) region. It is often scrutinized by the global community, constantly subject to a diversity of interests, acclaimed for insights into natural science, and more recently valued for inference into synergies between ecosystem services and the human condition. As a result, the GMR has been driven by necessity to the frontier of applied conservation science as an example and test-bed for management practice in largely pristine oceanic islands.
