Ecological Impacts of Sponge Harvest: An Assessment of Sponge Grounds Off Andros Island QUICK INTRO ON SPONGES There are currently 8897 described species of sponges belonging to the phylum Porifera, with hundreds of species reported from the Caribbean region, including The Bahamas. In discussing sponges with spongers of The [...]
Many fish species migrate to form fish spawning aggregations. The temporal and spatial predictability of these migrations and spawning aggregation locations makes species vulnerable to overfishing, as the majority of an adult population within a large region may be harvested quickly with minimal effort.
Groupers are a phylogenetically diverse group and include many ecologically and economically valuable predatory marine fishes that have experienced drastic population declines. Reproduction via spawning aggregations increases the vulnerability of grouper species such as Nassau grouper Epinephelus striatus to overfishing, and this is likely to be a major contributing factor to population declines.
This article focuses on the long distance spawning migrations of Nassau grouper in The Bahamas.
