Abstract

Areas with high lionfish (Pterois volitans and P. miles) abundances are considered high-priority in targeted removals programmes (Akins 2012). In this sense, establishing which habitat characteristics positively correlate with lionfish presence would be beneficial, as it would simplify the identification of areas with high lionfish abundances. Habitat complexity is a characteristic that is thought to positively correlate with lionfish abundance, both at the site (km2) and microhabitat scale (cm2) (Green et al. 2013, Valdivia et al. 2014). In particular, site scale complexity could majorly contribute to culling programmes improvement as it can be easily and quickly mapped with remote sensing techniques (Mumby et al. 1997). Few studies, however, have sought to test these assumptions, and have focused only on site scale complexity (Anton et al. 2014, Bejarano et al. 2015). This study investigated variations in lionfish abundances across habitat types of different complexity and attempted to determine if, and at which scale (site vs. microhabitat), complexity positively correlates with lionfish presence and abundance.

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