The red lionfish, Pterois volitans , has beautiful red stripes, streaming fins,
ID: 148478 • Letter: T
Question
The red lionfish, Pterois volitans, has beautiful red stripes, streaming fins, and a fearless disposition, and it is deadly. Native to the Pacific Ocean, the red lionfish was first discovered on coral reefs in the Bahamas in 1985. The species has spread to over 3 million square kilometers of the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico from Rhode Island to Panama. Lionfish have a voracious appetite for native fish, are armed with venomous spines, produce thousands of eggs every four days, and have no natural predators in their new range.
Part A
Conservation biologists are scrambling to put measures in place to contain the spread of lionfish. For example, Stephanie Green and colleagues measured how quickly the number of native fish would recover if varying numbers of lionfish were removed from reefs in the Bahamas. They randomly assigned 24 reefs to one of four groups and plotted the proportional change in the number native fish at six-month intervals after different amounts of lionfish (0%, 25%, 75%, or 95%) were removed. (In the graph that follows, values above 1 on the y-axis represent amounts that exceed those at the start of the study in 2009, while values below 1 indicate declines.) Compare the percentage of native fish observed in June 2011 after 25 percent versus 95 percent of lionfish were removed.
Drag the words on the left to the appropriate blanks on the right to complete the sentences.
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increased
0.5
50
1.2
20
decreased
70
1.7
Fill in the blanks
The green data point at June 2011 shows a proportional change of about , which means that the native fish population by about percent when 95 percent of the lionfish was removed. In contrast, the orange data point at June 2011 shows a proportional change of about , which means that the native fish population by about percent when only a quarter of the lionfish were removed.
Source: Green, S. J., N. K. Dulvy, A. L. M. Brooks, et al. 2014. Ecological Applications 24: 13111322. Amount of lionfish removed from each study group: 1 25% 75% 95% 096 1 Amount of native fish at start of 2. study 1.5 0 0.0 June 2011 June 2010 Dec 2010 Sampling dates Dec 2009Explanation / Answer
Answer:
The green data point at June 2011 shows a proportional change of about 1.7, which means that the native fish population increased by about 70 percent when 95 percent of the lionfish was removed. In contrast, the orange data point at June 2011 shows a proportional change of about 0.5, which means that the native fish population decreased by about 50 percent when only a quarter of the lionfish were removed.
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