Have Lionfish Met Their Match?

Initially all but ignored by native predators, the lionfish, an Asian native, may have met its match in the eastern U.S. and Caribbean waters it has been terrorizing. An international research team from the University of Queensland and the American Museum of Natural History reports in the scientific journal PLoS ONE that lionfish densities are amazingly low in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park in the Bahamas, apparently because the invasive fish has become a favored lunch of the native grouper.

The reefs there have some of the Caribbean's most diverse marine reserves and, as a result of a 20-year fishing ban in the park's waters, huge groupers exist there at high densities. "Grouper numbers [there]are among the highest in the Caribbean, and we believe that groupers are eating enough lionfish to limit their invasion on these reefs," said research team leader Peter Mumby.

Although previous studies have found lionfish in the stomachs of groupers, Professor Mumby said it was exciting to discover that Caribbean groupers are able to control their numbers, but he adds a cautionary note. "Years of overfishing means that densities of large grouper, like the Nassau grouper, are low throughout most of the Caribbean. If we want groupers to help us control the lionfish invasion, we'll have to develop a taste for lionfish instead of grouper and drastically reduce the fishing of this species."

And that, fellow divers, is one more reason not to order grouper on your next Caribbean vacation.