[Coral-List] New JEMBE paper: Coping with the lionfish invasion: Evidence that naive, native predators can learn to help

[McEachron, Luke]

Colleagues,

I'd like to bring attention to a new article in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology by Diller, Frazer, and Jacoby of the University of Florida:

Coping with the lionfish invasion: Evidence that naïve, native predators can learn to help.

The authors experimentally tethered live lionfish on rarely culled and intensely culled reefs to see if native piscivore conditioning could augment regular culling. Lionfish tethered on intensely culled reefs were 30x and 14x more likely to be taken by piscivores (i.e. Nassau grouper and nurse sharks) than lionfish tethered in seagrass or on rarely culled reefs. This indicates native predators that are conditioned to eat lionfish killed or injured during regular culls could learn to hunt live lionfish without constant human intervention.

There are caveats of course, but I found this article particularly relevant, and perhaps reassuring, to coral list given the recent dialog concerning human-wildlife interactions.


Luke McEachron





Luke McEachron|Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission|727-502-4860|Fax 727-893-1679
Luke.McEachron at MyFWC.com