Abstract

Exotic predators can cause declines in the abundance and diversity of native prey and are believed to be a primary driver of biodiversity loss. Lionfish, generalist predators from the Indo-Pacific introduced to the Caribbean, are assumed to be negatively affecting Caribbean reef fish communities. However, evidence for such effects is largely from very small-scale experiments on artificial substrata and high lionfish densities (Albins and Hixon 2008, Albins 2013, 2015), while a relationship between fish communities and lionfish densities was not detected on natural reef habitats (Elise et al. 2014). Additionally, whether effects observed on patch reefs occur on contiguous reefs is largely unknown. The purpose of this study was to measure the realized effects of the lionfish introduction on reef fish communities and whether reported short-term effects from controlled settings and at small spatial scales are evident at larger scales and on contiguous reef habitats. We quantified native reef fish abundance, species richness, and community composition at sixteen reefs along ~250 km of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef in Belize from 2009 to 2013, including the onset of the invasion in Belize.

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