Did you know that fish sing? Just like birds, they use sounds for courtship and other communication. This paper looks at best practices for using hydrophones and AI to monitor the choruses of aggregating grouper. The findings are a result of research conducted as part of the Grouper Moon Project, in collaboration with our partners at the Cayman Islands Department of Environment, Oregon State University, and NOAA.
Biogeographic and Seasonal Differences in Consumer Pressure Underlie Strong Predation in the Tropics
Tropical regions are, in general, more diverse than ecosystems at higher temperate latitudes. A commonly held hypothesis is that the diverse predators in tropical regions cause predation to have a relatively stronger role in shaping communities. Data from the REEF Volunteer Fish Survey Project (VFSP) were used by Michele Repetto and colleagues from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute to test for underlying differences in regional fish diversity that could contribute to variation in predation intensity and impact.
This paper provides a review of the 28 dwarfgobies (genus Eviota) known to occur in Fiji, including descriptions of five new species. One of these new species, Eyre's Dwarfgoby, was initially discovered and documented by REEF surveyor, Janet Eyre. This was the first of several new species that Janet's keen eyes and strong natural history sense has generated. The paper provides an illustrated key to the dwarfgoby species known to occur in Fiji, and each species is represented by a diagnosis or a description, range, habitat descriptions, and photographs.
The Scalloped Hammerhead shark (Sphyrna lewini), a critically endangered species with a decreasing global population, is characterised by its occurrence in large schools. Such schools are still observed today in the Pacific Ocean, but this is generally not the case in the Atlantic Ocean, and in the Cayman Islands not since the 1970s. The authors of this paper report a recent record of a school of S.
The state of biodiversity for most of the world is largely unknowable due to a lack of long-term population monitoring data. Citizen science programs could substantially contribute to resolving this data crisis, but there are noted concerns on whether methods can overcome the biases and imprecision inherent to these programs.
Laws protecting the Atlantic Goliath Grouper Epinephelus itajara from fishing in federal and state waters of the United States occurred in 1990 after the species was identified as being severely overfished. Population increases that occurred during the first 20 years of the closure were followed by a decline in the 10 years thereafter.
This publication from the Grouper Moon Project addresses the question of where fertilized eggs go after being released by Nassau Grouper at their spawning site off the west end of Little Cayman. On nights of spawning in 2017, researchers physically tracked clouds of tiny, transparent Nassau Grouper eggs through the night with an underwater microscope developed by scientists at Scripps Oceanography. Results show that fertilized eggs from Little Cayman floated back onto reefs on the island.
This study, conducted as part of the Grouper Moon Project, reports on the movement patterns and spawning behavior of Tiger Grouper during their reproductive season. Tiger Grouper is one of over 20 species of reef fish that are known to use the western tip of Little Cayman in the Cayman Islands as a spawning ground. This multi-species aggregation is best known for being home to the largest and one of the last known spawning aggregations of Nassau Grouper.
Citizen science is growing increasingly important for managers and conservation science. The REEF Volunteer Fish Survey Project provides an accessible and flexible way for divers to contribute observations to a large database. This flexibility comes with challenges for analysis, but these challenges can be addressed with analytical models that account for variation in survey effort in time and space.
REEF was one of five citizen science (CS) project teams that participated in a multi-year study funded by the National Science Foundation to understand CS volunteers’ accuracy and skills. This paper is the culmination of that study, which included several facilitated exercises and meetings between external researchers and the project participants.