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.

Figure 1. Composition by family of marine aquarium fish imported into the United States.

Data for the top 20 families are provided, with the remainder grouped as ‘other’. The number proceeding the family name in the legend signifies the number of species imported within each family.

Figure 2. Top 20 marine aquarium fish imported into the United States.

* indicate species complexes, which could represent more than one species which are all traded under the same name.

Figure 3. Percent Change and Diversity from Major Exporters of Marine Aquarium Fish.

Top - The percent change in the number of species (black bars), and the number of individuals or marine tropical fish imported into the United States in 2005 as the most important countries, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, are removed from the total. Bottom - The change in diversity (Shannon H, and Simpson D) and evenness as the same three countries are removed.

Figure 4. The number of countries exporting each species of marine aquarium fish into the United States.

Over 700 species are exported to the United States by a single country, whereas, Chromis viridis, is exported by 29 different countries.

Figure 5. Countries and species of marine aquarium fish imported into the United States.

Top: The average number of marine tropical fish individuals per species exported for the 40 countries sending fish to the U.S. in 2005. The countries exceeding an average of 1,000 individuals per species are noted, along with their most exported species. Bottom: The percent of species exceeding 1,000 individuals for each of the exporting countries.

Figure 6. Cumulative rank of marine aquarium fish and nonindigenous species in the United States.

Cumulative rank (by numbers of individuals) of marine aquarium fish species imported into the U.S. during one year 2004–2005 (solid line). Open and colored circles indicate equal weighting of occurrence for nonindigenous (NIS) species reported in marine waters of the U.S. (Florida) , . Dotted line indicates the 95% cumulative total dividing ‘prevalent’ and ‘rare’ species. Invasive lionfish is indicated by red circle, The domestically produced Hawaiian yellow tang is indicated by a yellow circle, set at rank #5 based on Hawaiian landings (unpublished landing data).