Spatial variation in allometric growth of invasive lionfish has management implications
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Author and article information
Abstract
Lionfish (Pterois volitans / miles) are an invasive species in the Western Atlantic and the Caribbean. Improving management of invasive lionfish populations requires accurate total biomass estimates, which depend on accurate estimates of allometric growth. Sedentary species like lionfish often exhibit high levels of spatial variation in life history characteristics. We review 17 published length-weight relationships for lionfish taken throughout their invasive range and found substantial regional differences in allometric growth parameters. The spatial pattern we observed is consistent with findings from other studies focusing on genetics or age-at-length. We show that the use of ex situ parameters can result in up to a threefold under- or overestimation of total weight, but using parameters from nearby regions reduces this error. These findings can have major implications for management in terms of predicting effects on local ecosystems, evaluating the effectiveness of removal programs, or estimating biomass available for harvest.
Cite this as
2018. Spatial variation in allometric growth of invasive lionfish has management implications. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27360v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27360v1note This preprint is not peer-reviewed. You may wish to reference the subsequent peer-reviewed version of this article.
Author comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Sections
Supplemental Information
Information about organisms sampled by Villaseñor-Derbez and Herrera-Pérez, 2014
Coordinates, minimum, maximum and mean depth (m), and number of samples for each location.
RMarkdown document (code)
RMarkdown document (code) that generates the TEX and PDF files for this paper
Additional Information
Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Juan Carlos Villaseñor-Derbez analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Sean Fitzgerald analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
GitHub
Funding
Juan Carlos Villaseñor-Derbez was supported by the Latin American Fisheries Fellowship Program and UCMexus-CONACyT Doctoral fellowship (CVU: 669403). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.