[Coral-List] Lionfish invasion query - potential vectors involved in its apparent rapid, wide-scale spread

Rachel Odom rachelodom at gmail.com
Mon Jun 1 13:41:31 EDT 2009


Rob,

Freshwater et al. 2009 examined the genetic relatedness between the
Floridian and Bahamian populations:
"These results indicate that the source of the Bahamian lionfish is egg and
larval dispersal from the United States east coast population, and support
previous models of reef fish dispersal that suggest a low level of
connectivity between the Bahamas and east coast of Florida."

I can't recall where, but I remember reading somewhere that were likely
multiple introductions.  Perhaps there were multiple introductions into US
waters that formed the population that spread to the Bahamas and beyond?


Reference:
Freshwater, D. W., A. Hines, S. Parham, A. Wilbur, M. Sabaoun, J. Woodhead,
L. Akins, B. Purdy, P. E. Whitfield, C. B. Paris. 2009. Mitochondrial
control region sequence analyses indicate dispersal from the US East Coast
as the source of the invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish Pterois volitans in the
Bahamas. Marine Biology 156: 1213-1221.



Best Regards,

Rachel Odom
Graduate Student
Coastal and Estuarine Ecology Lab (CEELAB)
University of Central Florida
rachelodom at gmail.com



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