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'No-take'marine reserves provide a valuable tool for managing marine resources as well as for providing relatively undisturbed habitat with which to assess modifications to ecosystems. We studied 2 marine reserves in northeastern New Zealand, the Leigh Marine Reserve (established 1975) and Tawharanui Marine Park (established 1982) in order to assess whether changes in protected predator populations had resulted in other indirect changes to grazers and consequently to algal abundance. Estimates of abundance of the most common demersal predatory fish Pagrus auratus indicated that adults of this species (ie large enough to prey upon urchins) were at least 5.75 and 8.70 times more abundant inside reserves than in adjacent unprotected areas. Overall, P. auratus were also much larger inside reserves with mean total lengths of 316 mm compared with 186 mm in fished areas. The spiny lobster Jasus …