Abstract
Invasive lionfish pose an unprecedented threat to biodiversity and fisheries throughout Atlantic waters off of the southeastern United States, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico. Here, we employ a spatially replicated Before-After-Control-Impact analysis with temporal pairing to quantify for the first time the impact of the lionfish invasion on native fish abundance across a broad regional scale and over the entire duration of the lionfish invasion (1990–2014). Our results suggest that 1) lionfish-impacted areas off of the southeastern United States are most prevalent off-shore near the continental shelf-break but are also common near-shore and 2) in impacted areas, lionfish have reduced tomtate (a native forage fish) abundance by 45% since the invasion began. Tomtate served as a model native fish species in our analysis, and as such, it is likely that the lionfish invasion has had similar impacts on other species, some of which may be of economic importance. Barring the development of a control strategy that reverses the lionfish invasion, the abundance of lionfish in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico will likely remain at or above current levels. Consequently, the effect of lionfish on native fish abundance will likely continue for the foreseeable future.
Highlights
The current study presents results on the abundance of tomtate (Haemulon aurolineatum) from North Carolina to Florida over the entire course of the lionfish invasion (1990–2014)
The results of the tomtate standardization analysis that was conducted to account for potential sampling biases and fluctuations in environmental conditions within invasion areas are outlined in the supplemental information (Supplementary Fig. 1)
Our spatially replicated Before-After-Control-Impact design with temporal pairing (BACI-P) analysis revealed that during the pre-invasion stage (1990–1996), average tomtate abundance was 20.9 tomtate per trap in invaded areas and 11.5 tomtate per trap in non-invaded areas (Fig. 2A)
Summary
The current study presents results on the abundance of tomtate (Haemulon aurolineatum) from North Carolina to Florida over the entire course of the lionfish invasion (1990–2014). Tomtate is a small grunt species that schools on reefs in Atlantic waters from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to Brazil[16,17]. Tomtate is abundant on most reefs south of Chesapeake Bay and serves as prey to many economically important species such as snappers and groupers[16]. Tomtate is a main dietary item of lionfish in waters off of the SEUS18. Tomtate is a model species to use for an investigation into the impact of the lionfish invasion on native fish abundance. We predicted that lionfish-induced reductions in tomtate abundance were minor up to the early 2000s (when lionfish abundances were low), significantly large by the late 2000s (when lionfish were relatively abundant), and even larger by the early 2010s (when lionfish reached their highest abundances to date)
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