WeRtheOcean
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On the North Coast, Dominican Republic, I have gone snorkeling right off the beach. To my dismay, I saw no fishes at all. Yet it is far from being a dead zone; I was swimming through thickets of healthy sea whip, and there were tufts of those polyps that look like mushrooms, so obviously there had also to have been ample plankton to feed these larger fauna.
My hypothesis is that the absence of fishes in these nearshore gardens is due to fishing pressure. Almost every day at this beach, I see the fishing boats coming in from the reef offshore. The Dominican Republic recently had to ban fishing for parrotfish, because these were being overfished due to their popularity, and the reef was suffering from their decline. Also, most of the beachfront restaurants serve lambí, that is, the giant queen conch, and shells of this species are seldom seen on the beach. My hunch -- and I admit that is all it is -- is that without this human pressure, the nearshore sand flats would have their fish fauna, just as they do their coelenterate fauna. There are plenty of fishes in that part of the world which do not require a reef habitat.
My hypothesis is that the absence of fishes in these nearshore gardens is due to fishing pressure. Almost every day at this beach, I see the fishing boats coming in from the reef offshore. The Dominican Republic recently had to ban fishing for parrotfish, because these were being overfished due to their popularity, and the reef was suffering from their decline. Also, most of the beachfront restaurants serve lambí, that is, the giant queen conch, and shells of this species are seldom seen on the beach. My hunch -- and I admit that is all it is -- is that without this human pressure, the nearshore sand flats would have their fish fauna, just as they do their coelenterate fauna. There are plenty of fishes in that part of the world which do not require a reef habitat.
