December 2016

Pez Maya

Coral Watch and Lionfish monitoring

Objective
o To calculate the size and density of the Lionfish population in the northern section of
the Sian Kaan Biosphere Reserve.
o Perform Coral Watch Survey on the same transect, looking at different gradations of
bleaching on Scleractinian Corals, using the Coral Watch Colour Chart.
Summary
Monitoring the lionfish population on our reef is of major importance, at nearly every single
training site, there has been a lionfish sighting. Conducting this monitor will give us evidence
about the growth of this invasive species in Sian Kaan and with this new methodology we
will achieve, not only a study of the lionfish but also, we will be able to do more coral watch
surveys that will help us understand the health of our corals.

Report
As is well known, the lionfish is an invasive species that arrived to this area due to the release of few specimens in Florida many years ago. The two species that are now in the Caribbean waters are Pterois volitans and Pterois miles (Figure 1), thanks to their methods of
reproduction the fact that they can reproduce at a very young age, and then can reproduce quickly and in large quantities, and that they do not have any top predators this species has invaded all the coasts of
the Atlantic, from the north of the
United States all the way to Brazil.
That is why we need to combat this
invasive species by creating eradication programs, but also there is
also the need to monitor the density of these animals to get an idea of
how their population is growing.

This past December the Science

Officers of Pez Maya established a
new methodology that will help to
calculate the size and density of the
lion fish population while monitor-

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Figure 1. One of many Lionfish on the reef.

ing the coral bleaching using coral watch surveys. It was put to trial with some lucky volunteers, to see how the monitoring methodology went, after a few tries the methodology was
a success, and a real hit with all that were involved.
The advantage of this new project is that all volunteers can participate on it as is a very simple methodology to follow. It begins with the lionfish monitoring that is done using a 30m
tape measure as a reference, to monitor for the lionfish the surveyors will swim two meters
either side of the tape, looking under overhangs, inside the coral formations anywhere a
lionfish can hide. This creates a band of 4m wide and 30m long, and any lionfish that are
within the transect, their information will be noted down, including the size of the fish, what
depth they are at, and where exactly the fish is on the reef, under the reef, mid water etc.
The search for the lionfish inside this
transect should take between 8 and
12 minutes depending on the complexity of the bottom. This leaves our
divers with plenty of time to conduct
a Coral Watch monitor, for this monitoring methodology, we use the
same 30m tape measure, and swim
along the line to monitor what corals
are directly beneath the tape, again
using the color chart to see what
varying shades there are for each
individual coral, the variance in the
color is an indicator to if a coral is
bleaching (Figure 2, coralwatch.org).
Figure 2. Coral Watch color chart.
This new monitoring will help
make dives more efficient and we
will be able to get more information of our reefs. Also with the
extra data of how many lionfish
that we have at some of our dive
sites, we can then use this information to do specific dives to
eradicate the lionfish by going on
hunts, to reduce their numbers
and to do some active conservation work of removing this invasive species that is doing some
real damage to our reef. (Figure
3.)

Figure 3. Lionfish hunting.

For more information on the projects here in Mexico, visit:

http://www.gvi.co.uk/location/yucatan/

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