Native grouper indirectly ameliorates the negative effects of invasive lionfish

The lionfish Pterois sp. invasion: Has the worst‐case scenario come to pass?

“…The vast majority of research to date has focused on prey fish, but lionfish consume a variety of invertebrates (Table ). There is evidence that the proportion of invertebrates in their diet has increased over time (Green et al, ) and that lionfish can reduce invertebrate populations drastically (Layman et al, ; Ellis & Faletti, ). Third, how do lionfish circumvent predator recognition mechanisms in prey fish?…”

“…To our knowledge, this irreversible outcome has not occurred yet, but some evidence now points to this idea as a realistic possibility. In several experiments, the presence of lionfish caused a loss of prey richness that was not observed in their absence or in the presence of native predators (Albins, , ; Benkwitt, ; Ellis & Faletti, ; Table ). Moreover, the added mortality imposed by lionfish, over and above that of native predators, led to the extirpation of two of 14 experimental populations of G. loreto (Ingeman, ).…”

“…In some places, rates of prey consumption by lionfish far exceed prey production rates and the majority of native fish biomass is being converted to lionfish biomass, as envisioned by Albins & Hixon (2013). A couple of trends, however, are emerging from the many observational and experimental (Elise et al, 2015;Ballew et al, 2016), predator declines ascribed to lionfish (Lesser & Slattery, 2011;Tuttle, 2017), predator declines not ascribed to lionfish (Ingeman, 2016); reductions in species richness on reefs with lionfish (Albins, 2013(Albins, , 2015Benkwitt, 2015;Ellis & Faletti, 2016); high rate of predation on a Belizean restricted-range endemic Indirect effects on benthos Decline in coral cover and increase in macroalgal cover…”

“…Reduction in rates of herbivory on experimental algal patches (Eaton et al, 2016;; large increases in macroalgal cover and losses of coral over on mesophotic reefs coinciding with arrival of lionfish (Lesser & Slattery, 2011) Distribution expands to thermal limits in absence of biotic resistance Predicted northern range limit reached in 2000; predicted southern range limit not yet reached as of 2017 but Amazon-Orinoco Plume crossed in 2014 (Ferreira et al, 2015); no evidence of biotic resistance on Atlantic coral reefs (Albins, 2013;Hackerott et al, 2013;Anton et al, 2014;Valdivia et al, 2014;Bejarano et al, 2015;Kindinger, 2015), except perhaps by Epinephelus morio (Ellis & Faletti, 2016) Increase in lionfish cannibalism as evidence of food limitation Cannibalism in lionfish reported (Valdez-Moreno et al, 2012;Côté et al, 2013b;Dahl et al, 2017) but temporal changes in rates of cannibalism undocumented to date 671 studies that have examined lionfish predation. First, lionfish have so far not driven the same large declines in prey abundance everywhere.…”

Integrating remote sensing and diver observations to predict the distribution of invasive lionfish on Bahamian coral reefs

“…Also shown is an invasive lionfish in the invaded range (photo by Mark A. Albins) lated reefs with high complexity, but relatively low prey fish availability, have supported high densities of lionfish for up to 9 wk (Davis 2018). On the other hand, high densities of large Nassau grouper Epinephelus striatus can interfere with lionfish hunting and may be a deterrent for lionfish to remain on small patch reefs (Pusack 2013, Raymond et al 2015, and see Ellis & Faletti 2016 for red grouper E. morio). Despite many studies of invasive lionfish in the greater Caribbean region, little is known of the finescale regional distribution of lionfish.…”