Yemane D. auteur aut IRD Shin Yunne-Jai auteur aut IRD Field J. G. auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been suggested as a tool that can achieve some of the goals of an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF), e.g. prevention of overexploitation, biodiversity conservation, recovery of overexploited population, but the consequences of their establishment on the dynamics of protected components are often unclear. Spatial and multispecies models can be used to investigate the effects of their introduction. An individual-based, spatially explicit, size-structured, multispecies model (known as OSMOSE) is used to investigate the likely consequences of the introduction of three MPAs off the coast of South Africa, individually or in combination. The simultaneous introduction of the MPAs affected varying proportions of the distribution of the modelled species (5-17%) and 12% of the distribution of the whole community. In general, the introduction of the MPAs in the different scenarios resulted in a relative increase in the biomass of large predatory fish and a decrease in the biomass of small pelagic fish. The simulation demonstrates that consideration of trophic interactions is necessary when introducing MPAs, with indirect effects that may be detrimental to some (mainly smaller prey) species. specialized ecosystem models individual-based models Marine Protected Areas southern Benguela 036 66 2 378-387 2009 1054-3139 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/PAR00003292 10.1093/icesjms/fsn171 1054-3139 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/PAR00003292 IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2009-03-06 2017-08-23 PAR00003292 fre