Abstract

Invasive Indo-Pacific Lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles) have now become successfully established in large parts of the North-western Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean (Schofield 2010). Documented lionfish impacts include reductions in richness, biomass and recruitment of native coral reef species, benthic community shifts to algal-dominated reefs, and suggested direct competition with native top predators (Albins and Hixon 2008, Coté and Maljkovic 2010, Green et al. 2014). Natural resource managers now face the unprecedented challenge of dealing with a prolific and versatile invader that can no longer be eradicated from the region. Culling of individuals by spearfishing seems to be the only method to date by which lionfish impacts might be mitigated. Regular culling therefore works as a lionfish control method, but it is logistically intensive (Morris 2012).

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