Florida Gulf Coast University Archives

Lionfish Pervade Waters Off Florida’s Coasts

May 19, 2017 — Saturday is “Lionfish Awareness and Removal Day” in Florida. Lionfish are an invasive species off Florida’s coasts. People in southwest Florida are studying the fish’s impact and others are helping to keep the invasive species’ population under control.

Sometime in the 1980s, a boat coming somewhere from the Indo-Pacific had lionfish onboard. That’s how they ended up in the waters off Florida where they don’t belong. They’re white with red stripes, and have eighteen hypodermic-like needle-sharp venomous spines on their fins. They’re the kind of fish you see in aquariums.

They’re pretty fish. But, as Florida Gulf Coast University marine biologist Mike Parsons said, their impact on the waters off Florida’s coasts, where they’re not supposed to be, has been anything but pretty.

“In terms of marine invasive species, this is probably one of the major ones that have had an impact on the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico,” said Parsons. “This is probably the biggest impact we’ve seen locally.”

And, Parsons said, they’re really good at breeding.

“A female can basically spawn 20,000 eggs every two or three days. And so a single female can spawn 2 million eggs a year,” he said.

Parsons also said lionfish are more productive when it’s warmer. And in recent years those high levels of production remain constant year round.

Read the full story at WGCU

Warning for seafood lovers: Beware of toxic fish

February 9, 2017 — When you think of what can hurt you in the ocean, chances are sharks come to mind. But a more likely threat to your health is something that you can’t see: tiny toxins found on algae called ciguatoxins.

Researchers are Florida Gulf Coast University in Estero have been taking a close look at ciguatoxins, which can make you sick, and in rare cases be deadly.

FGCU Marine Science professor Dr. Michael Parsons tells 4 In Your Corner he’s done a theoretical calculation to give an idea of just how toxic we’re talking. “If you had purified ciguatoxin, you would need, say, just 150 pounds of it to kill everybody on the planet,” says Parsons.

Read the full story at FOX 4

Grant Helps Researchers Studying Toxin Stalking Florida Reef Fish

December 20th, 2016 — An international team of researchers headed by a Florida Gulf Coast University professor is trying to understand the most common marine toxin in the world.

The five-year study funded by NOAA’s Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms Program is investigating the conditions that lead to outbreaks of ciguatoxin.

Dr. Mike Parsons with FGCU’s CiguaHAB research project said on WGCU’s Gulf Coast Live the toxin is produced by single celled algae. They tend to grow on seaweeds in tropical environments like coral reefs. It gets into the food chain when fish eat the algae, and bigger fish eat those fish, and so on.

Parsons said it doesn’t take much to make a person sick with ciguatera fish poisoning, with the toxin affecting humans in doses measured in parts per billion. Early symptoms are gastrointestinal and neurological. They can last hours to months. And they can flare up weeks or even years later. Parsons said ciguatera poisoning can even be fatal.

“Even though there’s no cure for it you can treat some of the symptoms,” Parsons said. “So for example one of the symptoms of a more severe case of ciguatera fish poisoning would be a drop in blood pressure, a drop in your heart rate. And so in some cases you’ll have to go into intensive care for that so you would need to go to the hospital in that case.”

No matter how or how long you cook the fish, you can’t kill the toxin.

Parsons said if people really want fresh fish from a tropical or reef environment avoid dangerous species such as predators like barracuda.

Read the full story at WGCU