Group Coordinator and Bulletin Editor
Production
Pacific Community, Fisheries Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems Division, Information Section, SPC, BP D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia.
Produced with financial assistance from the Australian Government, the European Union, France and the New Zealand Aid Programme.
Editorial
This 40th issue of the SPC Beche-de-mer Information Bulletin includes 15 original articles and scientific observations from a wide variety of regions around the world. We begin with an article by Di Simone et al., discussing the recent addition of three Holothuriidae species (teatfish: Holothuria fuscogilva, H. nobilis and H. whitmaei) to CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) Appendix 2. Di Simone and her colleagues note that this first “listing” for holothurians will probably be closely monitored to determine whether CITES is the right instrument for their conservation.
Andréfouët and Tagliaferro made a comparative assessment of sea cucumber communities in the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Fakarava Reserve of French Polynesia and in the Entrecasteaux group of the Lagoons of New Caledonia World Heritage Area. These two UNESCO-listed areas only include atolls, and the period of the study (2012–2013) was timely as it marked the official end of recent exploitations in both areas. The authors conclude that, compared with many sites in the Pacific, these atolls still harboured significant sea cucumber populations. They call for periodic holothurian surveys in the areas to estimate the possible impact of illegal or controlled legal exploitation since the period of the survey.
Eeckhaut et al. estimated the impact of predation by the crab Thalamita crenata on sea cucumber juveniles in a sea farming site in Madagascar. Their results show that predation by T. crenata is a key parameter to take into account when developing sandfish (Holothuria scabra) farming. Rogers et al. report on the first visual documentation that sea turtles prey on sea cucumbers on a reef in Belize. Purcell et al. examined and recorded the incidence of ectocommensal organisms on more than 60 hosts (including Thelenota anax and Stichopus vastus) collected at several sites around Lizard Island, on the northern Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
Mezali and Slimane-Tamacha describe a survey to better understand the rapidly developing sea cucumber fisheries in the Algerian territory. They conclude with a call for the urgent implementation of nine measures to manage the fishery.
Also in Algerian waters, Belbachir and Mezali studied the diet of Holothuria poli for four seasons in order to define the variation of the different trophic sources used by this sea cucumber species. They note that several species of sea cucumbers can share the same habitat because they do not all use the same elements of the sediment for food.
Some holothurian species have been recorded for the first time in Pakistan through two studies, the first from Moazzam and Moazzam and the second from Quratulan and Qader. New records are also reported from Algeria by Benzait et al. and from Mayotte by Mulochau and Conand.
Asexual reproduction of two sea cucumber species was studied by Borrero-Pérez in the Caribbean and Borrero-Pérez and Vanegas in the eastern Pacific. Desbiens and Wolfe report some observations on Stichopus juveniles on a coral reef in Palau, and Hartley et al. provide great photos of the spawning of Astichopus mollis at its northernmost subtropical locality.
Also included are various communications, some about workshops and conferences that were held in 2019. Congratulations are expressed to Farah Slimane-Tamacha who presented her PhD titled “Sea cucumbers of the Holothuroiida order from the Ain Franine region (west coast of Algeria): Biology, ecology and exploitation” on 8 December 2019 at University Abdelhamid Ibn Badis, Mostaganem, Algeria.
We deeply regret the premature death of Professor Francour who was one of the pioneers in the study of sea cucumbers in the Mediterranean. A research team from the Abdelhamid Ibn Badis University in Algeria has written a touching tribute to Prof Francour that we reproduce in this issue.
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