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Decline And Local Extinction Of Caribbean Eusocial Shrimp, J. Emmett Duffy, Kenneth S. Macdonald, Kristin M. Hultgren, Tin Chi Solomon Chak, Dustin Rubenstein

VIMS Articles

The tropical shrimp genus Synalpheus includes the only eusocial marine animals. In much of the Caribbean, eusocial species have dominated the diverse fauna of sponge-dwelling shrimp in coral rubble for at least the past two decades. Here we document a recent, dramatic decline and apparent local extinction of eusocial shrimp species on the Belize Barrier Reef. Our collections from shallow reefs in central Belize in 2012 failed to locate three of the four eusocial species formerly abundant in the area, and showed steep declines in colony size and increases in frequency of queenless colonies prior to their disappearance. Concordant with …