Are the scientific foundations of temperate marine reserves too warm and hard?

The scientific literature (including some of the most high-profile papers) on the ecological and fisheries effects of permanent no-take marine reserves is dominated by examples from hard tropical and warm temperate ecosystems. It appears to have been tacitly assumed that inference from these studies can directly inform expectations of marine reserve effects in cooler temperate and cold temperate waters. Trends in peer-reviewed studies indicate that the empirical basis for this assumption is tenuous because of a relative lack of research effort in cooler seas, and differences between tropical and temperate regions in ecology, seasonality, the nature of fisheries and prevailing governance regimes.