Abstract:
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are areas in the coastal zone of land or seas especially dedicated to
protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and are currently receiving increasing attention as
management tools for protecting marine populations from destructive human activities. The present
study explores the impact of a marine protected area (MPA) in Sri Lanka on a gradient of
anthropogenic disturbances on rocky shore communities by comparing the benthic communities of
disturbed and non-disturbed localities. This paper assessed the ecological impacts of unconstrained
human activities in two study localities and compared with one non-exploited locality. Results
showed that community abundance followed a decreasing trend along gradients with increasing
disturbances, albeit community biomass, due to opportunistic algal species, increased parallel to
disturbances. The community compositions in the three study localities differed, ranging from a
predominantly conservative species to fast-growing opportunistic species in disturbed areas. A
combination of multivariate analyses confirmed that most of the species with dominant biomass in
disturbed areas were opportunistic species such as Valoniopsis pachynema, Gracilaria cassa and
Padina boergesenii. Our study supports the growing literature that human activities in the coastal
zone modify the original community assemblage structure.
