Sharks, barracuda and other large predatory fishes disappear on Caribbean coral reefs as human populations rise, endangering the region’s marine food web and ultimately its reefs and fisheries, according to a sweeping study by researcher Chris Stallings of The Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory. While other scientists working in the Caribbean have observed the declines of large predators for decades, the comprehensive work by Stallings documents the ominous patterns in far more detail at a much greater geographic scale than any other research to date. His article on the study, ‘Fishery-Independent Data Reveal Negative Effect of Human Population Density on Caribbean Predatory Fish Communities,’ is published in the May 6, 2009 issue of the journal PLoS One (www.plosone.org/). ‘Seeing evidence of this ecological and economic travesty played out across the entire Caribbean is truly sobering,’ said Associate Professor John Bruno of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who served as the PLoS One academic editor for Stallings’ paper. ‘I examined 20 species of predators, including sharks, groupers, snappers, jacks, trumpetfish and barracuda, from 22 Caribbean nations, said Stallings, a postdoctoral associate at the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory. ‘I found that nations with […]