[Coral-List] Sharpnose Puffer
sale at uwindsor.ca
sale at uwindsor.ca
Thu Jan 1 00:15:06 EST 2009
Hi,
This is in response to the post from Will Welbourn in Roatan. He has
apparently seen the same exceptional recruitment pulse (or a similarly
timed one) to one first reported to me by Kirah Forman, of Belize
Fisheries, who is based at Hol Chan. Subsequently I heard from Gerardo
Gold of CINVESTAV, Mexico that one of his students had seen large numbers
of this species from sites between Boca Paila and Akumal on the Yucatan
east coast. In both cases the animals were present as very large numbers
of juveniles, and there was also high mortality possibly from disease, but
equally likely from starvation. I checked with a number of other fish
guys around the world and the consensus was that this species, like other
relatives among the puffers, filefish and trigger fish, is prone to
occasional exceptional recruitment events. The interesting thing to me,
now that we have heard of similar observations in Roatan, is just how
extensive has the good recruitment been this autumn? Are there several
patches of high recruitment (Mexico, northern Belize, and Roatan) or has
this species been successful over this relatively enormous swath of the
western Caribbean?
Peter Sale
Assistant Director
United Nations University -- International Network on Water, Environment
and Health (UNU-INWEH)
www.inweh.unu.edu
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