klausi
Contributor
Hi all, I am presently preparing my lecture notes for a class in conservation biology, and one focus of the class will be invasive species. Hence I read up on the lionfish invasion of the Caribbean, and I am hoping that the topic is interesting for the community here.
I wrote my conclusions from reading the literature on the lionfish invasion up in a blog post. In brief, the lionfish is an ideal invasive species: mid-sized, fast reproducing, a food generalist (hunts all kinds of small fishes), venomous and not fitting any "prey" pattern seen in the Caribbean by predatory fishes. On top of that, it entered a stressed ecosystem, with lots of overfishing (eliminating the big fish which could eat lionfish) and too much coastal degradation.
And, I also made a lionfish video, with all the footage from the fish's native range, in the Philippines, but the narration and the maps which I show discuss the lionfish as an invader. Enjoy!
I wrote my conclusions from reading the literature on the lionfish invasion up in a blog post. In brief, the lionfish is an ideal invasive species: mid-sized, fast reproducing, a food generalist (hunts all kinds of small fishes), venomous and not fitting any "prey" pattern seen in the Caribbean by predatory fishes. On top of that, it entered a stressed ecosystem, with lots of overfishing (eliminating the big fish which could eat lionfish) and too much coastal degradation.
And, I also made a lionfish video, with all the footage from the fish's native range, in the Philippines, but the narration and the maps which I show discuss the lionfish as an invader. Enjoy!