No reserve is an Island : Marine reserves and nonindigenous species

The metaphor ofnature-reserve-as-island that dominated reserve design in the 1980s has yielded to the recognition that reserves can rarely be very isolated. Supervening phenomena like chemical pollution are difficult to control even with substantial buffers. Biotic pollution-that is, invasion by nonindigenous species-is one such phenomenon that has received less attention in marine reserve design and management than in the terrestrial and freshwater realms. This difference is probably less a function of real differences in degree and nature of invasion and damage among these habitats than a reflection of less knowledge about the organization of marine communities and the origins of their component species than is usually available for their terrestrial and freshwater counterparts.