These nine key principles should be considered in designing MPAs to survive global change.

1. Resistance to Bleaching is exhibited when coral colonies don't bleach, or bleach but don't die. This may vary among different parts of a reef.

• Reef communities with high resistance to bleaching should be afforded highest levels of protection and should be buffered within larger management areas.

• These resistant communities play a critical role in reef survival by providing the larval recruits that enable recovery of affected areas.

2. Resilience to Bleaching is exhibited when coral colonies bleach and partially or entirely die, but the coral community recovers rapidly to its former state. This varies among different parts of a reef and among different reefs in the same complex.

   • Reefs or their components that demonstrate resilience to bleaching need to be included in zones with high levels of protection and should be managed to maintain conditions that facilitate successful coral recruitment and recovery.

3. Replication of protected resistant and resilient coral communities at multiple sites increases the probability that some will survive bleaching to help the recovery of affected areas.

   • MPAs should be designed to include multiple samples of protected resistant and resilient coral reef communities.

4. Connectivity within Reefs is an important determinant of MPA zone and boundary locations.

   • For example, strict protection zones that include areas of high resistance to bleaching should be positioned upcurrent of sites with lower resistance to facilitate their recovery by larval recruitment.

5. Connectivity among Reefs is an important determinant of MPA network design.

   • A network of MPAs linked to each other by prevailing currents will facilitate the recovery of damaged areas and the maintenance of biodiversity through larval exchange.

6. The entire reef ecosystem should be protected beyond its physical boundary to include the neighboring habitats with which it interacts, especially seagrass beds and back-reef lagoons, which provide important fish nurseries.

   • All these linked habitats need to be considered and managed as parts of a single functional unit.

7. Coral Reefs are Linked Intimately by dynamic processes (currents, rivers, and species movements) to distant areas and may be influenced by the activities there.

   • For example, deforestation activities in a water catchment may cause erosion that results in sedimentation of fringing reefs. These activities require some form of control if reef communities in a protected area are to survive.

8. At a Critical Minimum Reef Size, the diversity of coral, and presumably of other reef taxa, begins to decrease.

   • The core area of a protected coral reef, including its component resistant and resilient communities, should be as large as possible (at least 450 ha) to preserve high diversity of biota.

9. Coral Reef Users, like traditional fishers, dive operators, and other user groups, should be informed about resistance and resilience to coral bleaching and should participate early in coral reef MPA selection and design.

   • This will help to ensure clear understanding of the concept of reef resilience and survival, strong grassroots support for conservation at the site, and effective partnership in management where appropriate.