Re-examining the relationship between invasive lionfish and native grouper in the Caribbean
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Conservation Biology, Ecology, Ecosystem Science, Marine Biology
- Keywords
- biotic resistance, lionfish, invasive species, coral reef, grouper, Caribbean, predation
- Copyright
- © 2014 Valdivia et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2014. Re-examining the relationship between invasive lionfish and native grouper in the Caribbean. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e262v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.262v1
Abstract
Biotic resistance is the idea that native species negatively affect the invasion success of introduced species, but whether this can occur at large spatial scales is poorly understood. Here we re-evaluated the hypothesis that native large-bodied grouper and other predators are controlling the abundance of exotic lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles) on Caribbean coral reefs. We assessed the relationship between the biomass of lionfish and native predators at 71 reefs in three biogeographic regions while taking into consideration several cofactors that may affect fish abundance, including among others, proxies for fishing pressure and habitat structural complexity. Our results indicate that the abundance of lionfish, large-bodied grouper and other predators were not negatively related. Lionfish abundance was instead controlled by several physical site characteristics, and possibly by culling. Taken together, our results suggest that managers cannot rely on current native grouper populations to control the lionfish invasion.
Supplemental Information
Detailed information of reef sites.
Location names, coordinates, and site characteristics of surveyed sites. S&G, spur-and-groove.
Summary of the glmmADMB results.
Lionfish abundance (ind. 100 m-2) on grouper biomass (g 100 m-2), predators, and other co-factors.
Location of survey sites.
For site abbreviations, surveys dates and coordinates refer to Table S1
Moran’s I similarity spline correlograms for lionfish and grouper raw data across all sites (top two panels) and for the glmmADMB model residuals (bottom panel).
Note the strong spatial autocorrelation of the raw data (i.e., swirling lines around zero) and how the hierarchical structure of the random effects (sites nested in regions) of the full glmmADMB model eliminated this correlation in the model residuals. A Mantel test of the model Pearson residuals (r = 0.073) corroborates the lack of spatial correlation of the residuals. Lines are the mean ± 95% confidence interval.
Lionfish versus grouper composite
Lionfish versus grouper composite
