TY - JOUR
T1 - Ecological niche models reveal the potential zones of invasion of the cobia (Rachycentron canadum) in the Eastern Pacific Ocean
AU - Marín-Enríquez, Emigdio
AU - Ramírez-Pérez, J. Saúl
AU - Cruz-Escalona, Víctor
AU - Moreno-Sánchez, Xchel G.
AU - Rodríguez-Montes de Oca, Gustavo A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2022/6
Y1 - 2022/6
N2 - Cobias (Rachycentron canadum) are large fish that live in all the tropical oceans of the world, except for the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO). During 2015, a cobia cage culture was initiated in the EPO off Ecuador. Thousands of cobia individuals escaped from the culture, and the location of the escapees is unknown. In this paper, we used a Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model to assess the preferential habitat of cobia in a portion of its natural occurrence range and used the model to predict the potential invasion zones of cobia in the EPO. The model performance was satisfactory (75–93% accuracy). Mixed Layer Depth (MLD) was the most important environmental variable. Cobia inhabits waters near the continental shelf, with a shallow MLD. Five important zones of high probability of invasion were detected in the EPO: one in the southern California Current, one in the Central Mexican Pacific, one off Guatemala/El Salvador, one in a latitudinal band that detaches from the coastline of Central America, and one off Northern Chile. There is an important seasonal variation of the zones of high probability of cobia invasion, variation that is apparently related to the seasonal cycle of different large-scale and mesoscale systems.
AB - Cobias (Rachycentron canadum) are large fish that live in all the tropical oceans of the world, except for the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO). During 2015, a cobia cage culture was initiated in the EPO off Ecuador. Thousands of cobia individuals escaped from the culture, and the location of the escapees is unknown. In this paper, we used a Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model to assess the preferential habitat of cobia in a portion of its natural occurrence range and used the model to predict the potential invasion zones of cobia in the EPO. The model performance was satisfactory (75–93% accuracy). Mixed Layer Depth (MLD) was the most important environmental variable. Cobia inhabits waters near the continental shelf, with a shallow MLD. Five important zones of high probability of invasion were detected in the EPO: one in the southern California Current, one in the Central Mexican Pacific, one off Guatemala/El Salvador, one in a latitudinal band that detaches from the coastline of Central America, and one off Northern Chile. There is an important seasonal variation of the zones of high probability of cobia invasion, variation that is apparently related to the seasonal cycle of different large-scale and mesoscale systems.
KW - Gulf of Mexico
KW - Invasive species
KW - MaxEnt
KW - Northwestern Atlantic Ocean
KW - Probability of occurrence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128401024&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10750-022-04875-z
DO - 10.1007/s10750-022-04875-z
M3 - Artículo
AN - SCOPUS:85128401024
SN - 0018-8158
VL - 849
SP - 2413
EP - 2433
JO - Hydrobiologia
JF - Hydrobiologia
IS - 10
ER -