The authors describe the behavioral interactions of piscivorous mid-water and demersal fishes at subtropical live-bottom reefs off the coast of Georgia and off the west coast of Florida in the northeast Gulf of Mexico. The observations are used to construct a topological behavior web of the interactions of mid-water and demersal piscivores, their prey, and those associated species that modify predator-prey interactions. Results show that inter-specific behavioral interactions are common attributes of piscivores in these reef fish communities.
Despite being the world’s largest rays and providing significant revenue through dive tourism, little is known about the population status, exploitation, and trade volume of the Mobulidae (mobulids; Manta and Mobula spp.). There is anecdotal evidence, however, that mobulid populations are declining, largely due to the recent emergence of a widespread trade for their gill rakers.
A database of fish surveys conducted by volunteer recreational divers trained by REEF was used to examine fish populations in Monterey Peninsula, California, between 1997 and 2011. Over 3,000 surveys were conducted as part of this ongoing citizen science effort. The analysis was conducted using a numerical conversion method to calculate population estimates from REEF log-scale data (this method was described in a companion paper published in the same CalCOFI Reports issue).
This paper describes several models to convert order-of-magnitude count data that are collected during REEF Roving Diver Technique (RDT) surveys to a numeric mean, and demonstrate that with a sufficient number of surveys, estimates of the mean with a reasonably small confidence interval can be attained. For each model, parameter estimates and associated confidence intervals were derived from 292 RDT surveys where precise counts were also made. Models were compared using the small sample Akaike Information Criteria (AICc).
This paper is the result of a workshop held at University of Washington in 2008 on nearshore rocky reefs. REEF Director of Science, Dr. Christy Pattengill-Semmens, presented data collected by REEF surveyors in the Pacific Northwest, and some details from that talk are in this paper. Nearshore temperate reefs are highly diverse and productive habitats that provide structure and shelter for a wide variety of fishes and invertebrates. Recreational and commercial fisheries depend on nearshore reefs, which also provide opportunities for non-extractive recreational activities such as diving.
This seminal publication was created by REEF and our collaborators at NOAA, ICRI, the United Nations Environment Programme, Caribbean Environment Programme, SPAW-RAC, and the over 40 participants of the 2010 Caribbean Regional Lionfish Workshop. The guide provides best practices for lionfish control and management, including control strategies, outreach and education, research, monitoring, legal considerations, and ideas for securing resources and partnerships.
Research conducted by Dr. Ben Holt from University of East Angila in the UK shows that methods to record marine diversity used by REEF surveyors returned results consistent with techniques favoured by peer-reviewed science. The findings give weight to the growing phenomenon of citizen science programs such as REEF's Volunteer Survey Project. The field study compared methods used by REEF volunteer SCUBA divers with those used by professional scientists to measure the variety of fish species in three Caribbean sites in the Turks and Caicos.
This paper is part of the larger body of genetic research being conducted on Nassau Grouper in the Caribbean. The authors identified ten polymorphic microsatellite loci for Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus) by cross-amplification of loci isolated in Gulf coney (Epinephelus acanthistius). Samples from three geographic localities were scored for these loci –Glovers Reef off Belize (n = 50), Little Cayman (n = 50) and Grammanik Bank in the U.S. Virgin Islands (n = 50). Screening samples yielded 8 to 27 alleles per locus with observed levels of heterozygosity ranging from 0.30 to 0.96.
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.
This paper explores detectability rates of lionfish using underwater visual census methods such as belt transects and stationary visual census. Knowing the error in these methods specficially for lionfish is necessary to help study this invasive species in the western Atlantic.