Document of bibliographic reference 287593

BibliographicReference record

Type

Bibliographic resource

Type of document

Journal article

BibLvlCode

AS

Title

Revealing the appetite of the Marine Aquarium Fish Trade: The volume and biodiversity of fish imported into the United States

Abstract

The aquarium trade and other wildlife consumers are at a crossroads forced by threats from global climate change and other anthropogenic stressors that have weakened coastal ecosystems. While the wildlife trade may put additional stress on coral reefs, it brings income into impoverished parts of the world and may stimulate interest in marine conservation. To better understand the influence of the trade, we must first be able to quantify coral reef fauna moving through it. Herein, we discuss the lack of a data system for monitoring the wildlife aquarium trade and analyze problems that arise when trying to monitor the trade using a system not specifically designed for this purpose. To do this, we examined an entire year of import records of marine tropical fish entering the United States in detail, and discuss the relationship between trade volume, biodiversity and introduction of non-native marine fishes. Our analyses showed that biodiversity levels are higher than previous estimates. Additionally, more than half of government importation forms have numerical or other reporting discrepancies resulting in the overestimation of trade volumes by 27%. While some commonly imported species have been introduced into the coastal waters of the USA (as expected), we also found that some uncommon species in the trade have also been introduced. This is the first study of aquarium trade imports to compare commercial invoices to government forms and provides a means to, routinely and in real time, examine the biodiversity of the trade in coral reef wildlife species.

WebOfScience code

https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:000305343100003

Bibliographic citation

Rhyne, A.L.; Tlusty, M.F.; Schofield, P.J.; Kaufman, L.; Morris, J.A.; Bruckner, A.W. (2012). Revealing the appetite of the Marine Aquarium Fish Trade: The volume and biodiversity of fish imported into the United States. PLoS One 7(5): e35808. https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0035808

Topic

Marine

Is peer reviewed

true

Access rights

open access

Is accessible for free

true