This award supports the participation of David Miller of SUNY at Cortland and Romuald Lipcius of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in a program of cooperative research with Roberto de la Torre and others of the Centro de Investigaciones Quintana Roo in Mexico and with Patricia Briones of the Puerto Morelos Marine Research Institute of the National University of Mexico. Using novel approaches based on their previous experience with lobsters plus standard techniques of experimental field ecology, they will carry out a comprehensive investigation of the ecology and population dynamics of Panulirus __________ argus, the spiny lobster. By means of field surveys, the collaborating _____ scientists are determining habitation, growth, settlement, mortality, and recruitment patterns of postlarval, juvenile and adult lobsters as a function of environmental and biotic conditions. They are then using these results to design manipulative field experiments that assess the relative importance of these factors. Spiny lobsters are key benthic predators in subtidal marine habitats of tropical and subtropical waters. In spite of extensive research programs throughout the world, little information exists on the ecological relationships between the various life history phases of this crustacean. Due to the inability of researchers to find young juveniles in sufficient numbers to carry out quantitative surveys and manipulative field studies, less is known about the ecology of young juveniles than of any other age group. This lack of information has precluded reliable estimates of natural settlement, growth, mortality, and recruitment rates. However, in the Mexican Caribbean there exist locations with large numbers of postlarval, juvenile and adult spiny lobsters. The proposed U.S.-Mexico collaboration will take advantage of this unusual research opportunity and will produce the most detailed ecological information of any population of young juvenile spiny lobsters in the world, which will also represent one of the most extensive data sets gathered on any species in a nearshore marine habitat. When combined with the work on adults and larvae by Mexican researchers, this study will provide a model of lobster research applicable to fisheries throughout the Caribbean.
