Rapid degradation of the world’s coral reefs jeopardizes their ecological functioning and ultimately imperils the well-being of the millions of people with reef-dependent livelihoods. Ecosystem accessibility is the main driver of their conditions, with the most accessible ecosystems being most at risk of resource depletion. People’s socioeconomic conditions can change as they get further from urban centers and can profoundly influence people’s relationship with the environment. However, the mechanisms through which increasing accessibility from human societies affects natural resources are still unclear. A plausible mechanism through which markets influence the environment is through the socioeconomic changes that tend to accompany accessibility. We used social and ecological data from 10 coastal communities and 31 reefs in northwest Madagascar to (i) unravel the respective influences of the local fish market and coastal communities on reef fish biomass and (ii) investigate how communities’ socioeconomic and resource use characteristics change with increasing proximity to markets. We used generalized additive models to reveal that reef fish biomass is strongly related to the accessibility of both markets and local communities. We also highlight that the ways coastal communities use marine resources changes predictably with market proximity. More precisely, market proximity affects fishing gear (technique effect), wealth, and selling strategies (scale effect) of coastal communities. Our findings emphasize the need to better quantify links between markets and fishing communities through household-level surveys to implement market-based actions that could help to regulate the effect of markets on both fish stocks and fishing communities.

中文翻译：

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解读马达加斯加西北部市场对珊瑚礁的复杂作用

世界珊瑚礁的迅速退化危及其生态功能，并最终危及数以百万计依赖珊瑚礁为生的人们的福祉。生态系统的可及性是其状况的主要驱动力，最容易获得的生态系统最容易遭受资源枯竭的威胁。随着人们远离城市中心，人们的社会经济状况可能会发生变化，并且会深刻影响人们与环境的关系。但是，人类社会日益增加的可及性影响自然资源的机制仍不清楚。市场影响环境的一种可行机制是通过往往伴随可及性的社会经济变化。我们使用了来自马达加斯加西北部10个沿海社区和31个礁石的社会和生态数据，（i）揭示了当地鱼类市场和沿海社区对礁鱼生物量的各自影响，以及（ii）调查了社区的社会经济和资源利用特征如何变化与市场的距离越来越近。我们使用广义加性模型来揭示礁鱼生物量与市场和当地社区的可及性密切相关。我们还强调指出，沿海社区利用海洋资源的方式会随着市场的临近而变化。更准确地说，市场邻近度会影响沿海社区的渔具（技术效应），财富和销售策略（规模效应）。