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Lionfish (Pterois sp.) invade the upper bathyal zone in the western Atlantic

, , , , ,
1 Nekton Foundation, Begbroke Science Park, Begbroke, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
2 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
3 Operation Wallacea, Old Bolingbroke, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom
4 U.S. Geological Survey, Gainesville, Florida, United States
5 Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration, West End, Roatan, Honduras
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.2987v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Marine Biology
Keywords
lionfish, Pterois, deep sea, Bermuda, Roatan Honduras, invasive species, upper bathyal
Copyright
© 2017 Gress 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
Gress E, Andradi-Brown DA, Woodall L, Schofield PJ, Stanley K, Rogers AD. 2017. Lionfish (Pterois sp.) invade the upper bathyal zone in the western Atlantic. PeerJ Preprints 5:e2987v1

Abstract

Non-native lionfish have been widely recorded throughout the western Atlantic on both shallow and mesophotic reefs, where they have been linked to declines in reef health. In this study we report the first lionfish observations from the deep sea (>200 m) in Bermuda and Roatan, Honduras, with lionfish observed to a maximum depth of 304 m off the Bermuda platform, and 250 m off West End, Roatan. Placed in the context of other deeper lionfish observations and records, our results imply that lionfish may be found more widely in the 200-300 m depth range of the upper bathyal zone across the western Atlantic, but currently are under sampled compared to shallow habitats. We highlight the need for considering deep-sea lionfish populations in future invasive lionfish management.

Author Comment

This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints.

Additional Information

Competing Interests

KS is the owner of the Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration.

Author Contributions

Erika Gress conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Dominic A Andradi-Brown conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Lucy Woodall conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Pamela J Schofield performed the experiments, analyzed the data, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Karl Stanley performed the experiments, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Alex D Rogers conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Animal Ethics

The following information was supplied relating to ethical approvals (i.e., approving body and any reference numbers):

This study describes visual and video observations of lionfish (Pterois sp.) in the deep sea. No ethical review was required to conduct these observations in either Bermuda or Honduras.

Data Deposition

The following information was supplied regarding data availability:

All raw data for this study is available from the US Geological Survey Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database (https://nas.er.usgs.gov).

Funding

DAAB is funded by a Fisheries Society of the British Isles (FSBI) Ph.D. Studentship. EG was supported by a Student Conference on Conservation Science Miriam Rothschild Travel Bursary. This research was undertaken as part of the XL Catlin Deep Ocean Survey - Nekton’s Mission to the North West Atlantic and Bermuda. Nekton acknowledges the support of XL Catlin and the Garfield Western Foundation. This project was supported by the US Geological Survey's Invasive Species Program. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 678760 (ATLAS). This output reflects only the author’s view and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Lionfish (Pterois sp.) invade the upper bathyal zone in the western Atlantic
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