There's a great new paper out that from some really sharp folks doing work in the Bahamas that shows that lionfish introduction reduced overall reef fish recruitment by 79%:
Albins, M. and M. Hixon. 2008. Invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish Pterois volitans
reduce recruitment of Atlantic coral-reef fishes. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 367: 233?38.
They're both exceptional scientists and really good people, but I might be biased (I knew them while working at Oregon State).
They have been watching these fish spread (Dr. Hixon has been doing coral reef work down there for a looong time) and are seriously concerned. Their paper has a great description of how fast the lionfish spread across their experimental sites. These fish are unlike any predator the Caribbean fish have ever encountered before. They sort of "herd" their prey, then snap them up. Very little eats lionfish, and their reproduction seems well suited to their new home.
The lionfish densities are incredibly high in parts of the Bahamas (>390 lionfish per hectare; Green and Cote 2009). That's over 150 lionfish in the space of a football field. Surveys in 2004 off North Carolina already found an average of about 21 lionfish per hectare (Whitfield et al 2007). It appears probable that high densities of a novel, highly efficient predator will cause major changes in population structure and species distribution on the reefs. may already be in progress and may in turn push down lionfish numbers).
I'm glad to see so may folks working on this issue. It's unlikely that we'll ever see anything resembling wide-scale eradication or control, but their populations can be kept down in specific areas we may be able to establish something akin to refuge areas for maintaining breeding populations of species of concern.
For those less inclined to slog through journal articles, there's a great writeup on the invasion of the lionfish available from NOAA written by the same folks as the first article. There's some great photos in there, too.
Albins, M. and M. Hixon. 2008. Invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish Pterois volitans
reduce recruitment of Atlantic coral-reef fishes. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 367: 233?38.
They're both exceptional scientists and really good people, but I might be biased (I knew them while working at Oregon State).
They have been watching these fish spread (Dr. Hixon has been doing coral reef work down there for a looong time) and are seriously concerned. Their paper has a great description of how fast the lionfish spread across their experimental sites. These fish are unlike any predator the Caribbean fish have ever encountered before. They sort of "herd" their prey, then snap them up. Very little eats lionfish, and their reproduction seems well suited to their new home.
The lionfish densities are incredibly high in parts of the Bahamas (>390 lionfish per hectare; Green and Cote 2009). That's over 150 lionfish in the space of a football field. Surveys in 2004 off North Carolina already found an average of about 21 lionfish per hectare (Whitfield et al 2007). It appears probable that high densities of a novel, highly efficient predator will cause major changes in population structure and species distribution on the reefs. may already be in progress and may in turn push down lionfish numbers).
I'm glad to see so may folks working on this issue. It's unlikely that we'll ever see anything resembling wide-scale eradication or control, but their populations can be kept down in specific areas we may be able to establish something akin to refuge areas for maintaining breeding populations of species of concern.
For those less inclined to slog through journal articles, there's a great writeup on the invasion of the lionfish available from NOAA written by the same folks as the first article. There's some great photos in there, too.
