Sharks play a vital role in the functioning of marine ecosystems and, in coral reef habitats, have come under increasing pressure from human activity. Management of coral reefs often uses zoning and protected areas to boost productivity to sites subject to disturbance. These measures are often complex and devoid of long-term data crucial in determining success of marine reserve design. Studies investigating efficacy of a protected area are often species-specific and vary based on habitat composition and influencing physical factors. While animal movement is a significant aspect in defining boundaries of a reserve, simplistic mechanisms of predator-prey interactions are often overlooked. Prey selection can be a pertinent component in outlining habitat and space use of a species and presently little data are available linking abundance of predators to abundance of prey. Reef sharks that tend to be site-attached carry energetic capacities with potential to span larger distances than other site-attached reef fish. With changing climate conditions and persistent resource exploitation, it is necessary to determine factors that influence residency of mobile species and whether degraded reefs can support an abundance of predators. Using an ecosystem-based approach, sources of productivity in reef communities were examined from 2006-2014 using long-term fish, benthic, and environmental monitoring data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science for four reefs in the central Great Barrier Reef. This data was modeled against residency data collected from telemetry studies of grey reef sharks from 2011-2013. Preliminary results indicate fine-scale variabilty in abundance and species-richness by site where specific habitats may be more resilient to changing conditions. Sources of productivity for grey reef sharks such as piscivores are severely depleted since 2006 surveys and require further analysis to determine whether lower prey abundance has an effect on residency to reefs in the central GBR.