Spatial variation in allometric growth of invasive lionfish has management implications
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science, Ecology, Marine Biology, Natural Resource Management, Population Biology
- Keywords
- Lionfish, invasive species, length-weight, allometric growth, regional variations, biological invasions
- Copyright
- © 2018 Villaseñor-Derbez 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
- 2018. Spatial variation in allometric growth of invasive lionfish has management implications. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27360v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27360v1
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.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
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.
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