Invasive Banggai cardinalfish crowd out native fish from Diadema and anemone habitats

By Jake Adams on Mar 01, 2011

Banggai cardinalfish are so cute, what’s the worst that could happen if we set them loose in a non-native habitat? So far we’ve only been hearing about the details of the introduction, and we’ve debated what it means for a marine fish species to be truly called “invasive“. This new video from Zoological Services details Pterapogon kauderni where it doesn’t belong and the harm it is doing to the local habitats.

In Lembeh Strait there are a lot of long spine urchins, Diadema species, and large host anemones. The urchins and anemones are important habitat for the local cardinalfish species, shrimpfish and a diversity of clownfish species. But with no native predators to keep the Banggai cardinalfish population in check, the invaders crowd around the important biotopes, crowding out local species. The Banggai cardinalfish is threatened in it’s native habitat, yet it is invasive in another. That’s irony.

Anonymous

I have a hard time believing that they have no predators in their new environment…
http://www.facebook.com/chrisozolins Chris Ozolins

I’d say this video is highly unscientific.

Show me some quantitative figures, perhaps representing a decrease in biodiversity and whether or not this effects the ecosystem negatively.

I also agree with coralman’s comment. If there aren’t any predators… why are they restricted to hanging out in the proximity of anemones and urchins?
http://www.facebook.com/chrisozolins Chris Ozolins

I’d say this video is highly unscientific.

Show me some quantitative figures, perhaps representing a decrease in biodiversity and whether or not this effects the ecosystem negatively.

I also agree with coralman’s comment. If there aren’t any predators… why are they restricted to hanging out in the proximity of anemones and urchins?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Robinson/1306993752 Steve Robinson

Long spine urchins, Diadema species, are prevalent in huge numbers in damaged habitats all over Indonesia . In fact, the destruction of many thousands of square miles of coral habitat by the use of crowbars and cyanide fishing has created a massive paradise for these urchins and in turn for the Bangai cardinal. [ I guess the Zoological Services folks missed that story]

In other words, once they start colonizing the immense networks of diadema rich habitats they will spread and form one continuous region from Lembeh to Bali, to Jakarta etc. They are there to stay!

“But with no native predators to keep the Banggai cardinalfish population in check” ….did they say that?
Everything eats bangais!! Snappers, basses, eels, grunts, scorpionfish, lizardfish, lionfishes…. Wow…they just make up the story as they go along….desperately searching for cliches to fill in the gaps!
[ At least they blamed dive operations for spreading the pretty fishes.]

This is make believe, knee jerk “fear driven” journalism trying to salvage some “bad news” out of the “bad news” extinction stories that have just been proven silly.

Steve
http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Robinson/1306993752 Steve Robinson

During the …”The bangais are becoming extinct” phase of “faux green groups” that needed pre-text and basis for hysteria…I thought it odd how cheap Bangais remained in price.

Now I am afraid they are going to get cheaper.
In all damaged habitats the diversity changes and usually for the worse. Finally, ruined and compromised habitats [which Indo has no shortage of ] will have some more pleasant fish.

Those habitats were bad news already…and given up on by most. Urchin dependant species and not coral dependant species is unexpected news. Urchins have been of plague proportions in damaged S.E.Asian areas.

Steve
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Gioia/824913918 Mike Gioia

Promote capture of the Bangai in these areas and than ban it from its original natural habitat.

After this they are easily bred in captivity.
Anonymous

Very interesting irony. It reminds me that although the human species likes to think things should be kept static and that even what seems to be the negative aspects of artificial species relocation is simply just the change of the planet by another species (in some cases humans). I am sure one can look to many other species across time where they most likely did something (unwittingly) to kill off an entire small ecosystem due to something benign like eating a particular invasive plants seeds, getting caught up in the jet stream and pooping the seed in another area of the world. So, what is natural? Is everything caused by man unnatural? I know…deep…

Another tangent to this story is right here in Utah. We have some of the most incredible ancient native american rock art in the form of pictographs. Spectacular stuff. But really, this is just old graffiti in a way. So, about 800 years later, another group of people (western settlers) came by and wrote on top of it – more graffiti. Fast forward to today…what is history, and what is graffiti? Who makes the call? Where is the line drawn? Hopefully the correlation to this story is apparent and I don’t sound too crazy.

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