Diet richness of invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish revealed by DNA barcoding

Invasive lionfish in the western Atlantic are known to be voracious predators. Their unusual hunting behavior suggests that they could prey on most fish species within their gape size limits. Significant research by REEF researchers and others has been conducted looking at stomach contents of lionfish to identify prey. However, relatively few prey species have been identified because of the challenge of identifying partly digested prey. It is also difficult to know how well the identifiable diet reflects the unidentified portion. The authors of this study addressed this issue by DNA-barcoding unidentifiable fish items from the stomachs of 130 lionfish. They identified 37 prey species, half of which had previously not been recorded. The visually identifiable species only accounted for 25% of the total prey items, making it clear that extrapolating total prey from the identifiable portion is not accurate. The barcoding technique used can increase the ability to predict the impacts of invasive predators on recipient communities.