NURP-supported scientists provide insights into
invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish in the Bahamas
This story entered on 21st May, 2008 07:13:19 AM
PST
Coral reef communities in the Caribbean now face a new and potentially
devastating threat: the invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish. The lionfish
is currently on the threshold of the Caribbean basin, and is poised
to sweep across this tropical sea, with potentially dire consequences
for native coral-reef communities.
In the last several years, members of Dr. Mark Hixons lab
(Oregon State University) working at the NURP Caribbean Marine Research
Center at Lee Stocking Island (LSI), a field station at the southwestern
end of Exuma Sound, Bahamas, have documented increasingly frequent
sightings of lionfish. These findings have provided an unprecedented
opportunity to study the ecological interactions of lionfish with
Caribbean coral reef fish communities from the very beginning of
the invasion. Hixons team has been studying reef-fish communities
in this region since the early 1990s, providing ample pre-invasion
baseline information.
During the summer of 2007, PhD student Mark Albins of Hixons
team documented the recruitment of newly settled lionfish to a matrix
of 47 experimental reefs near LSI. Between June and September, 24
lionfish recruited to these experimental reefs. The primary focus
of this initial investigation was a controlled experimental test
of the effects of lionfish on native fish communities. Results of
the experiment show that lionfish significantly reduce the net recruitment
of coral reef fishes by an estimated 80%. This huge reduction in
recruitment is presumably due to predation (based on field observations
of predatory behavior) and may eventually result in substantial,
negative ecosystem-wide consequences.
In addition to the field experiment, aquarium feeding trials were
conducted that shed light on lionfish feeding habits. Lionfish consumed
large volumes of a wide variety of small reef fishes, and quite
large fish in relation to their body size. The single exception
was that adult lionfish avoided brightly colored cleaner gobies
(Gobiosoma genie).
Hixons team will return to the Bahamas this summer and thereafter
to conduct further field experiments, field observations, and laboratory
experiments to answer important questions regarding the invasion
and how lionfish interact both directly and indirectly with native
Bahamian reef fish and invertebrate communities. Information from
this research will be shared with a variety of academic, governmental,
and nongovernmental organizations and agencies in the Bahamas, as
well as NOAA scientists who are working to build a more complete
picture of the overall invasion and spread of the lionfish in the
Caribbean and tropical western Atlantic.
NURP supports this research through the Caribbean Marine Research
Center, NOAAs Undersea Research Center for the Caribbean.
More information: http://www.nature.org/wherewework/caribbean/bahamas/features/
Contact information
Name: John Marr
Tel: (561) 741-0192
jmarr@perryinstitute.org
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