Florida Keys being invaded by Lionfish

[wayner]

Florida Keys being invaded by lionfish - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

[Seamazter]

Good article

[sphelps]

There's lionfish all over the Caribbean, I saw hundreds in Cuba last year.




Apparently DNA testing of caught fish has shown that they all originated from the 6 to 8 lionfish kept in an aquarium in Florida, the aquarium was wiped out by a hurricane.

[Delphinus]

A public aquarium or a private one? How long ago was that? The reason I ask is they are pretty widespread, I guess their range extends as far north as the Carolina's ?? Or at least Georgia for sure. I'm curious if it's really all from 8 individuals how much time it took to fill in that span..

[sphelps]

Hurricane Andrew in 1992 smashed an aquarium and release the lions into Biscayne Bay. I'm not sure if it was public or private but I can only assume it was public if they are matching DNA. I'm sure how much truth is involved int this theory but it seems to be common story on the web these days.

[Funky_Fish14]

Yeah I too highly doubt it was just from those 8 fish...

I've also heard of sightings of them almost as far north as New York.

[justinl]

Anybody have a link or the title of the paper that spshelps is referring to? I'm just curious about the DNA tracking methods used... and frankly a little dubious. I'm no genetics guru myself, but I can't imagine any way to accomplish such a thing unless the 6-8 fish in question had had tissue samples taken from them and preserved (not likely unless they were originally experimental subjects). This would of course also require the samples to be available to the researchers (not impossible, assuming they were from a public aquarium), that the researchers were aware of the samples, and that the researchers had independent tissue samples of other fish to compare. Seems like too much of a miracle scenario to me.

edit: a quick literature search turns up not much. far as I can tell, the exact origin is still a mystery though the aquarium trade is getting most of the speculative blame.

[corpusse]

Originally Posted by Funky_Fish14

Yeah I too highly doubt it was just from those 8 fish...

I've also heard of sightings of them almost as far north as New York.

I remember reading about them in nyc. Maybe not so much there but in florida, I think it would be pretty fun to spend the day hunting lion fish.

[saltcreep]

There are issues with other non-native species in most parts of Florida, not just lionfish. These fish are being reported in the Carolinas and further north.

There has been speculation about a now defunct wholesaler dumping fish in the Miami area where a higher than normal concentration of non-native fish have been found.

[sphelps]

Like I said I'm not sure how much truth there is to this but....

http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactS...?speciesID=963

http://www.allatsea.net/article/Dece..._the_Caribbean

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionfish

http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news...--30-30--.html

http://www.fishchannel.com/fish-news.../lionfish.aspx

http://www.physorg.com/news159706864.html