Community dynamics in Fijian coral reef fish communities vary with conservation and shark-based tourism Mallory G. McKeon A,C and Joshua A. Drew A,B A Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, 114 and Broadway, New York, NY 10027, USA. B Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Division of Ichthyology, American Museum of Natural History, 79th Street and Central Park West, New York, NY 10024, USA. C Corresponding author. Email: mgm2166@columbia.edu Abstract. Marine protected areas (MPAs) effectively improve the biomass and diversity in heavily exploited marine systems, but often fail to reach their full potential because they require more space, time, and consistency of regulation. Recently, shark-based tourism, which utilises some of the remaining shark strongholds as tourism hotspots, has brought about increased awareness to exploited reef systems. In Fiji, specifically, shark diving companies include local community members in their operations to promote better understanding of their reefs. We seek to investigate whether seemingly denser shark populations during feeding times influence community composition and structure. Visual census data were collected from 50-m belt transects at four different reefs in Fiji: two MPAs with shark-based ecotourism with food provisioning, one MPA without shark-based ecotourism, and one unprotected area without shark-based tourism. Paradoxically, indices of evenness and diversity were highest in the non-protected site. However, there was significantly higher fish abundance and species diversity within reserves than outside of reserves. Within reserves, sites with shark feeding had lower fish abundance and higher richness, diversity, and evenness. Mean trophic level was highest at sites with shark feeding. Use of chum increased average fish abundance and diversity within shark-dive sites. These results indicate that there are evident differences between MPAs that do and do not offer trophic supplementation for shark-based ecotourism. Thus, tourism may be facilitating a shift of ecosystem composition in such areas. Furthermore, the results suggest that feeding methods may augment the impacts of shark-based tourism on the reef at large. Additional keywords: marine protected areas Received 17 May 2018, accepted 6 November 2018, published online 22 November 2018 Introduction Delineating the variety of services provided by ecosystems is a key element in identifying avenues to make conservation reso- nate with the general public. One of the services provided by healthy marine and coastal ecosystems in the Pacific is an abundance of charismatic fauna allowing for wildlife tourism. In addition to providing meaningful encounters with wild animals in their natural environment, wildlife tourism can also provide a long-term source of funding for conservation, decoupling con- servation measures from the largesse of private foundations or the vagaries of State budgets. This ability to have conservation ‘pay for itself’ is an attractive one, yet the measures of success have been equivocal (Kiss 2004). One critique of wildlife tourism activities is that augmenting the behaviour of charismatic species may generate artificial wildlife communities. This argument is particularly critical of establishments where supplemental food is provided to species to facilitate up-close encounters for tourists. For example, Hodg- son et al. (2004) found behavioural changes, including higher levels of aggression, in provisioned versus non-provisioned colonies of Mareeba rock-wallabies (Petrogale mareeba). Simi- larly, Kamal et al. (1997) found increased aggression and fewer social activities with adult hamadryas baboons (Papio hama- dryas) in Saudi Arabia. Provisioned female bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) provide less maternal care than their wild counterparts (Foroughirad and Mann 2013), while artificial aggregations of normally solitary animals can also lead to increased risk of disease transmittance and elevated stress hor- mones (Semeniuk et al. 2009). Recently, shark-based wildlife tourism activities have risen in popularity. Multiple reviews have highlighted that shark- based tourism has grown to over 350 operations, many of which utilise food provisioning as an effective facilitation technique (Gallagher and Hammerschlag 2011; Gallagher et al. 2015; Richards et al. 2015). In contrast to other wildlife tourism studies, results from Hammerschlag et al. (2012) and Maljkovic ´ and Co ˆte ´ (2011) suggest that food provisioning does not dra- matically impact the behaviour of sharks and that food provi- sioning, as a form of wildlife tourism, may be an ecologically appropriate way for people to observe sharks. CSIRO PUBLISHING Pacific Conservation Biology https://doi.org/10.1071/PC18045 Journal compilation Ó CSIRO 2018 www.publish.csiro.au/journals/pcb