Page 141 - Caribbean Reef Life Demo

roupers are the largest members of the bass family and can live for up to 30 years. As top-level predators, their role in the reef ecosystem is to keep other sh species in check. owever, as shark populations are in decline in the Caribbean, more groupers are taking valuable herbivores off the reef, as seen above. As ambush predators they must lie in wait for their meals and this makes them vulnerable to parasites. roupers can spend up to eight hours a day at cleaning stations. They are solitary hunters, only coming together once a year to compete for the right to reproduce.
Most groupers start out as females, and only much later in life they may turn into males. With the high mortality rate on a reef, this means there will always be more fertile females available for spawning, and only the strongest males will reproduce. Every year in early spring, groupers will travel great distances to congregate at traditional spawning sites. As the sun goes down females dart up into the water column and release their eggs. Frantic males race to catch up in an attempt to fertilize these eggs. These rare spawning aggregation sites need to be protected; they are highly vulnerable to unscrupulous over shing.
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