Communities throughout the globe are increasingly being given the responsibility of resource management, making it necessary to understand the factors that lead to success in community-based management (CBM). Here, we assessed whether and how institutional design principles affect the ecological outcomes of CBM schemes for Arapaima sp., an important common-pool fishery resource of the Amazon Basin. We quantified the degree of presence of Ostrom’s (Science 325:419–422, 1990) institutional design principles in 83 communities using a systematic survey, and quantitatively linked the design principles to a measure of ecological outcome (arapaima density) in a subset of 39 communities to assess their influence. To understand regional patterns of institutional capacity for CBM, we evaluated the degree of presence of each principle in all 83 communities. The principle scores were positively related to arapaima density in the 39 CBM schemes, explaining about half of the variation. Design principles related to defined boundaries and graduated sanctions exerted the strongest influence on the capacity of CBM to increase arapaima density. The degree to which most principles were present in all 83 communities was generally low, however, with the two most influential principles (defined boundaries and graduated sanctions) being the least present of all. Although the roles of the other principles (management rules, conflict resolution, collective action, and monitoring systems) are probably important, our results indicate that efforts aimed at strengthening the presence of defined boundaries and graduated sanctions in communities hold promise to improve the effectiveness of arapaima CBM regionally.

全球社区越来越多地被赋予资源管理的责任，因此有必要了解导致社区管理 (CBM) 成功的因素。在这里，我们评估了制度设计原则是否以及如何影响巨骨舌鱼CBM 计划的生态结果sp.，亚马逊流域重要的公共池塘渔业资源。我们使用系统调查量化了 Ostrom (Science 325:419–422, 1990) 制度设计原则在 83 个社区中的存在程度，并将设计原则与 39 个子集中的生态结果（巨骨舌鱼密度）定量联系起来社区来评估他们的影响力。为了解 CBM 机构能力的区域模式，我们评估了每项原则在所有 83 个社区中的存在程度。在 39 个 CBM 方案中，主要分数与巨骨舌鱼密度呈正相关，解释了大约一半的变化。与定义边界和分级制裁相关的设计原则对 CBM 增加巨骨舌鱼密度的能力产生了最强烈的影响。大多数原则在所有 83 个社区中的存在程度普遍较低，但是，两个最有影响力的原则（界定边界和分级制裁）是所有原则中存在最少的。尽管其他原则（管理规则、冲突解决、集体行动和监控系统）的作用可能很重要，但我们的结果表明，旨在加强社区明确边界和分级制裁的存在的努力有望提高区域性的巨骨舌鱼煤层气。