2 Methods
2.1. Study site and design
This study was conducted on 18 outer-shelf coral reefs, in two re
gions (northern and southern) of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, between March and May 2014; the northern region included outer-shelf reefs of the Cairns and Innisfail management regions, while the. southern region included the Swains reefs, located -140 NM offshore of Mackay (Fig. 1). We surveyed three reefs per management zone in both regions (fished, no-take, and no entry, total per region=9,Table S1). The two regions surveyed in this study also receive different types and amounts of human pressure. For instance, although located ~140 NM offshore, the Swains reefs in the southern region receive considerable commercial line fishing pressure, and some charter line fishing pressure, but relatively few divers or spearfishers (Mapstone et al 2004). The northern region reefs off Innisfail and Cairns receive less commercial line fishing pressure (Mapstone et al., 2004) but higher numbers of recreational hook and line spear fishers, divers, and tourists due to their relative proximity to the coast and to a major population center (city of Cairns: pop. 150.920). We also included non-target or control species from the family Chaetodontidae, the selection of which was dependent on local abundances; Chaetodon baronessa was used as the non-target species in the northern region, while Chaetodon rainfordi was used in the southern region. Although chaetodontids have smaller body sizes and occupy a lower trophic level than P. leopardus, they are a locally abundant group that are un-equivocally not targeted by fishers, whereas other species of similar size and trophic level are sometimes targeted by spearfishers or line fishers, or caught as bycatch (Frisch et al., 2008). Thus, chaetodontids are an appropriate control group for investigating the effects of protection from fishing on coral trout behaviour