For the past two weeks, Mark Hixon’s graduate students from Oregon State University (Alex Davis, Tye Kindinger, and Lillian Tuttle) have been busy SCUBA diving on their experimental reefs where 
they are observing the ecological effects of invasive lionfish on native communities. Alex has been filming lionfish behavior at dusk, when lionfish are often actively hunting on the reefs. Tye is monitoring two species of native basslets (one of which is a popular aquarium fish) that could be threatened by lionfish predation. Lillian has been measuring densities of cleaner fishes, potential lionfish prey, which pick parasites off of other larger fishes, and are thus an important part of maintaining a healthy reef-fish community. These lionfish ladies will be returning to CEI this summer to continue their lionfish research, along with their fellow graduate student, Casey Benkwitt, and two OSU undergraduate students.