Reply to Ovando et al.: How connected are global fisheries?

We agree with Ovando et al. (1) that the spatial structure and connectivity of fish populations will have important implications for the spatial distribution of spillover benefits from marine protected areas (MPAs). The key assumption we made—that populations are well mixed throughout their geographic range—is indeed a heroic one, but we argue that it provides a useful starting point from which to quantify the total potential global fisheries catch improvements from a globally optimized MPA network (2). We also agree with ref. 1 that explicitly modeling the spatial structure of individual stocks [e.g., the direction and extent of adults and larvae dispersal (3)], and the … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed Email: rcabral{at}ucsb.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1