Bernal+and+Myers+OpEd

Gin-clear water, tropical sand, margaritas, the Caribbean sun: The Bahamas bring these to mind.

Yet just steps beyond the coastline, on the reefs, an epic battle has begun.

The Indo-Pacific lionfish is spreading like wildfire. (INVASION OF EPIC PROPORTIONS is too much of an overstatement -- think of a new metaphor or simile)

How did they arrive? The aquarium trade. What do they threaten? Coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves, among others -- all nurseries for fish we eat.

Can they spawn? Can they ever: 30,000 eggs a week, compared with the ????? produced, say, by snappers or the ??? produced by groupers. (Evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that lionfish feed on juveniles of those two groups, as well as such crustaceans as . . . ?)

The diet of lionfish puts them in competition with commercially harvested fisheries that support thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in commerce in the (southeast?) the region.

Scientists are scrambling to understand what niche in the complex marine ecosystem lionfish are settling on. (WHY IS THAT CRUCIAL?)

Time is growing short.

There are new efforts to get recreational shareholders (i.e. fishermen, boaters, divers) to take an active role in facilitating studies of lionfish in the Caribbean. NOAA (SPELL OUT ON FIRST USE) and other governmental agencies are encouraging anyone who encounters lionfish to remove them or at the very least report the coordinates where they're located.

The boating community is on board with these programs, with recreational boaters collecting a majority of the specimens.

Participation by the general public is relatively low, but any contribution whatever helps. [LOOMING APOCALYPSE IS TOO DRAMATIC. STRIKE A QUIETER TONE.]