Contemporary and Emerging Fisheries in The Bahamas
A recent, easy-to-read, review paper on the state of fishery resources in The Bahamas. A great starting point for assessing the many conservation challenges ahead.
Bonefish Migrations
Summer is flying by, so time to get Abaco Scientist going again. Here is an article on bonefish migrations from the spring I keep forgetting to post. I saw a spawning aggregation on Abaco and it was absolutely amazing. Lots more here soon.
Sargassum Accumulations on Caribbean Beaches
Over the last 8 years or so, many Caribbean Islands have been challenged by massive Sargassum algae accumulations on beaches (a Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute fact sheet here, and a high resolution link to the poster here). These accumulations may have many deleterious effects on species that utilize beach habitat, including for nesting turtles. See for instance
New Lionfish Invasion Updates
A note from Dr. Mark Hixon (pasted below) updating his lab’s lionfish research. In addition to the papers he highlights, there are are also some interesting findings regarding lionfish parasite release in the invaded range and how lionfish may disrupt fish cleaning stations.
“Now that my lab’s lionfish research is winding-down, I’ve finally updated our lionfish invasion web […]
Falcons are as Fast as Racecars
Peregrine falcons may not be that common in The Bahamas, but still an interesting article from the Washington Post.
Regional Lionfish Diet Compilation
Here is a recent paper on lionfish prey compiled at a regional scale. The Abstract is pretty straight forward, so I will just paste that below. I think the key sentence is the last. Since lionfish are such generalist predators, their trophic role will vary substantially among regions, islands, ecosystems and individual habitats. My opinion remains the dire predictions […]
Pufferfish Here, Pufferfish There
We have posted some natural history observations on the checkered puffer before (see here and here and here), and now the scientific paper on their dietary habitats has been published (here). We think this species is a plays a much under-appreciated role in nearshore ecosystems of The Bahamas and throughout the Caribbean. They are ubiquitous in shallow […]
Final Project from our Superstar Intern
Here is the final research project on mangrove die-off from our superstar intern Sofia Sanchez-Zarate, from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. Great job Sofia!
Dear Sponge – I Am Breaking Up With You
To help us understand the complexities of nature, we often use simple classifications to help wrap our minds various intricacies. Think about how we classify species interactions: predation, mutualisms, parasitisms, commensalisms, etc. Simple. But complications linger in the background. Former NCSU PhD student Stephanie Archer (along with current student Enie Hensel) demonstrated one such complexity in a recent study (full […]