Tallahassee Scientific Society begins its spring speaker series at the Challenger Center on Feb. 25 with a talk on the “Secret Lives of Grouper.” (Photo: Leonardo Buenos)
From savory sandwiches to gourmet-grilled delights, grouper rank among the world’s finest and most popular seafood fare. So popular, in fact, that demand has long outstripped supply by commercial grouper fleets operating around the world.
Surprisingly, despite groupers’ (there are at least 20 species in the Gulf of Mexico) enormous appeal, scientists have struggled to fully understand how groupers behave in the wild. Sketchy knowledge about how and where groupers grow and reproduce plagues government efforts around the world aimed at protecting and conserving them from over-harvest and potentially irreversible collapse.
Chris Koenig
One of the leading and most successful champions of collecting hard-to-find data on grouper biology is Christopher (Chris) Koenig of FSU’s Coastal and Marine Laboratory. On the evening of Feb. 25, he will present “Deep Science: The Secret Lives of Grouper,” a presentation at the Challenger Learning Center’s IMAX Theater downtown. The talk opens the fifth annual HORIZONS Spring Speaker Series, a four-month-long program sponsored by the Tallahassee Scientific Society, a local nonprofit organization.
Koenig said his talk will summarize findings he’s made over the past 30 years on three of the Gulf’s most important grouper species, namely the gag grouper, the red grouper and the largest grouper on the planet, the goliath grouper. All three species are managed by federal and state laws that have grown increasingly tighter during the past two decades.
Because their numbers were found to be shrinking at an alarming rate, in 1990 goliath grouper (formerly known as jewfish) were closed to harvest throughout the Southeast, a protected status that has now helped the massive fish rebound throughout the Gulf. Koenig has conducted research on the goliath’s feeding, spawning and habitat-building behavior throughout the Gulf, in Brazil and in French Guiana.
Much of Koenig’s research has been used by government fishery managers to forge better fishing laws for both commercial and sports fishermen. He has served many years on various scientific committees tied to the National Marine Fisheries Service, the predominant fishery regulatory body within the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Koenig’s contributions include the creation of two marine reserves located 50 to 75 miles off the beaches off Apalachicola in the Northeastern Gulf. Established in 2000, these reserves serve as remote laboratories for Koenig and other scientists to study how and when grouper aggregate for spawning purposes as well as many other aspects of their behavior.
Koenig’s talk, which will include rarely seen video of groupers in their deepwater Gulf habitats, also will feature rare recordings of groupers’ “language.” Koenig characterizes this audio — captured at depth — as “wild sounds, all related to courtship and aggression.”
The series resumes March 24 with a presentation by Mars specialist James Rice of the Mars Spaceflight Facility at Arizona State University. He’ll present “Wheels on Mars: The Adventures and Discoveries of the Mars Rovers,” an overview of NASA’s rover missions that began in 2004.
If you go
What: Lecture on “Deep Science: The Secret Lives of Grouper”
When: The talk begins at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb.25
Where: Challenger Center, Kleman Plaza
Tickets: Cost is $8 for members and $15 for non-members. Purchase in advance by visiting the Society’s website at www.TallySci.org. They also will be available at the door on the night of the talk.
http://www.tallahassee.com/story/life/2016/02/20/science-series-opens-secret-lives-grouper/80691094/
Tallahassee Democrat