Thank you for coming into our section of the board, Dr. Rocha. I don't think we have a single genetics-type person around. Good lord, I've never seen so many publications come from a single person in so short a time. The Smithsonian must love you.
The main problem with determining whether or no a species is natural or unnatural to an area is time. Scientific consensus usually takes years. Significant ecological entrenchment of an invader species may take place in less than a decade. By the time action on a high-priority species is mandated, it is frequently too late to preserve the original community structure. I do not see this much in the Caribbean, but it is commonplace throughout the coastal and inland regions of the U.S..
The majority of management strategies for marine waters take little to no steps towards active removal of exotic species. They do, however, earmark funds to study, and study, and study... In the meantime, an aggressive species can do great harm. As it is often quite easy to identify an exotic (though not the transmission vector), delays in removing them frustrates conservation scientists and community ecologists. What often occurs in U.S. biological agencies is that restoration funding is withheld due to extreme cost and effort required. The irony is that such costs could have been greatly reduced if we'd been permitted to take action earlier. The end result is that we end up doing nothing. Oh, it breaks the heart!
From our standpoint, community ecologists are far less concerned with possible benefits of a natural exotic than were are with possible damages caused by any intruder species, natural or unnaturally-derived. The damages are tangible and real. In the case of the lionfish off the U.S. east coast, reports are coming in of the community structure of the native benthic fish populations being altered. That same fate may be in store for the Bahamas. We have the opportunity to possibly slow this down, by having divers kill the things asap, rather than take pictures and report 'em to ScubaBoard. All that does is piss me off, and talk about fish farming with Hank.
Kill the lionfish!
Rocha:
The main problem with determining whether or no a species is natural or unnatural to an area is time. Scientific consensus usually takes years. Significant ecological entrenchment of an invader species may take place in less than a decade. By the time action on a high-priority species is mandated, it is frequently too late to preserve the original community structure. I do not see this much in the Caribbean, but it is commonplace throughout the coastal and inland regions of the U.S..
The majority of management strategies for marine waters take little to no steps towards active removal of exotic species. They do, however, earmark funds to study, and study, and study... In the meantime, an aggressive species can do great harm. As it is often quite easy to identify an exotic (though not the transmission vector), delays in removing them frustrates conservation scientists and community ecologists. What often occurs in U.S. biological agencies is that restoration funding is withheld due to extreme cost and effort required. The irony is that such costs could have been greatly reduced if we'd been permitted to take action earlier. The end result is that we end up doing nothing. Oh, it breaks the heart!
From our standpoint, community ecologists are far less concerned with possible benefits of a natural exotic than were are with possible damages caused by any intruder species, natural or unnaturally-derived. The damages are tangible and real. In the case of the lionfish off the U.S. east coast, reports are coming in of the community structure of the native benthic fish populations being altered. That same fate may be in store for the Bahamas. We have the opportunity to possibly slow this down, by having divers kill the things asap, rather than take pictures and report 'em to ScubaBoard. All that does is piss me off, and talk about fish farming with Hank.
Kill the lionfish!
