Abstract

Groupers (Subfamily: Epinephelinoe) are important components of commercial fisheries in tropical and subtropical reef environments. More so than with typical temperate species, the unusual and complex biology and ecology of groupers mandates that their life-history characteristics be explicitly incorporated into any management strategy. Previous assumptions used in managing groupers are reevaluated in light of a comprehensive review and new findings on grouper life histories. Past overviews tend to generalize that groupers are protogynous hermaphrodites (changing sex from adult female to male), long lived, slow growing , sexually dimorphic in length and have female biased-sex ratios. Other general patterns have been related with size (e.g. smaller groupers do not aggregate and tend to spawn over extended periods). However, recent observations indicate that some species show different life-history characteristics, such as a predominantly gonochroristic sexual pattern, relatively short lifespan, wide size range overlap between sexes and a sex ratio close to unity. Also, small species appear to spawn in aggregations during a restricted period of time

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