Abstract

Although invasive lionfish (Pterois sp.) are thought to have been established in the northern Gulf of Mexico (nGOM) since 2010 and are found in some of the highest densities of anywhere in their invaded range (Dahl and Patterson 2014), very little has been published about their regional life history. High growth rates generally lead to the successful invasion and thus are important to estimate. Barbour et al. (2011) estimated lionfish growth using length-at-age data from offshore North Carolina using a von Bertalanffy growth curve. Age when total length (TL) equals zero (t0) was fixed at -0.50 to account for a lack of age-0 lionfish in the samples. This resulted in an increase in the instantaneous growth rate (K) estimate from 0.32 to 0.47, a decrease in asymptotic maximum length (Linf) from 455.1 mm TL to 425.2 mm TL, and a maximum age estimate of eight years. Lionfish age and growth from Little Cayman Island (Edwards et al. 2014), including daily rings, indicated K and Linf as 0.42 and 349 mm TL, respectively, and a maximum age of five years was reported. Finally, Swenarton et al. (2015) using length-based modeling verified by otolith analysis reported an elevated K in the Florida Keys (0.70) compared to northeast Florida (0.47). Other von Bertalanffy growth parameters (Linf and to) were not reported. All of the age and growth studies to date have been completed relatively early in the invasion and will likely need to be reevaluat-ed as the invasion levels out. Since 2012, more than 15,000

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