Last month, the first expedition to use a deep-diving submersible to study the Atlantic Ocean lionfish invasion found something very disturbing -- at 300 feet deep, there were still significant populations of these predatory fish, and they were big. Big fish in many species can reproduce much more efficiently² than their younger, smaller counterparts, and lionfish are known to travel considerable distances and move to various depths. This raises significant new concerns in the effort to control this invasive species that is devastating³ native fish populations on the Atlantic Coast and in the Caribbean Sea.

 

"We expected some populations of lionfish at that depth, but their numbers and size were a surprise," said Stephanie Green, the David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow in the College of Science at Oregon State University, who participated in the dives. OSU has been one of the early leaders in the study of the lionfish invasion.

 

"This was kind of an 'Ah hah!' moment," she said. "It was immediately clear that this is a new frontier in the lionfish crisis, and that something is going to have to be done about it. Seeing it up-close really brought home the nature of the problem."

 

OSU participated in this expedition with researchers from a number of other universities, in work supported by Nova Southeastern University, the Guy Harvey Foundation, NOAA, and other agencies. The five-person submersible "Antipodes" was provided by OceanGate, Inc., and it dove about 300 feet deep off the coast of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., near the "Bill Boyd" cargo⁴ ship that was intentionally⁵ sunk there in 1986 to create an artificial reef for marine⁶ life.

 

That ship has, in fact, attracted a great deal of marine life, and now, a great number of lionfish. And for that species, they are growing to an unusually large size -- as much as 16 inches.

 

Lionfish are a predatory fish that's native to the Pacific Ocean and were accidentally introduced to Atlantic Ocean waters in the early 1990s, and there became a voracious⁷ predator¹ with no natural controls on its population. An OSU study in 2008 showed that lionfish in the Atlantic have been known to reduce native fish populations by up to 80 percent.

 

Eradication⁸ appears impossible, and they threaten everything from coral reef ecosystems⁹ to local economies that are based on fishing and tourism.

 

Whatever is keeping them in check in the Pacific -- and researchers around the world are trying to find out what that is -- is missing here. In the Caribbean, they are found at different depths, in various terrain¹⁰, are largely ignored by other local predators¹¹ and parasites¹², and are rapidly eating their way through entire ecosystems. They will attack many other species and appear to eat constantly.

 

And, unfortunately, the big fish just discovered at greater depths pose that much more of a predatory threat, not to mention appetite.

 

"A lionfish will eat almost any fish smaller than it is," Green said. "Regarding the large fish we observed in the submersible dives, a real concern is that they could migrate to shallower depths as well and eat many of the fish there. And the control measures we're using at shallower depths -- catch them and let people eat them -- are not as practical at great depth."

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