United States: (Florida • Puerto Rico • Virginia)
Western Atlantic: Bermuda, Florida, Bahamas, Yucatan Peninsula and throughout the Caribbean to southern Brazil. Not known from the Gulf of Mexico except at the Campeche Bank off the coast of Yucatan, at Tortugas and off Key West.
The Nassau Grouper is found from Bermuda and Florida throughout the Bahamas and Caribbean Sea. Heemstra and Randall (1993) indicate a second subpopulation lying along the coast of Brazil, roughly from Forteleza to Rio de Janeiro. However this may be an error, as there do not appear to be any specimens or verifiable photographs of the Nassau grouper from Brazil (Heemstra, pers. comm. 2001, Moura 2001). (Ref. 54399) Countries:Native:Anguilla; Antigua and Barbuda; Aruba; Bahamas; Barbados; Belize; Bermuda; Cayman Islands; Colombia; Costa Rica; Cuba; Dominica; Dominican Republic; French Guiana; Grenada; Guadeloupe; Guatemala; Guyana; Haiti; Honduras; Jamaica; Martinique; Mexico; Montserrat; Netherlands Antilles (Curaçao); Nicaragua; Panama; Puerto Rico; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Suriname; Trinidad and Tobago; Turks and Caicos Islands; United States (Florida); Venezuela; Virgin Islands, British; Virgin Islands, U.S.
Uncertain presence and origin:Brazil (Ref. 54399)Population:Most time series landings/CPUE data sets show some yearly fluctuations and even large ones, but not order of magnitude fluctuations. However, Table 16 in Sadovy and Eklund (1999) of commercial landings in the US showed order of magnitude variations from 1986 to 1988 when total landings in pounds were 15,633, 0, 4,737 respectively. The data has been checked and indeed, very few Nassau were caught in 1987, and for no apparent external reason (Eklund, pers. comm., March 2001). As the Nassau grouper is long-lived and relatively sedentary this is rather surprising.Current population size is estimated at >10,000 mature individuals. It is estimated that a population decline of 60% has occurred over the last three generations (27-30 years). Ideally, the percentage decline (from the best available data, i.e., landings, CPUE, spawning aggregation size) would be applied to estimates of the original Nassau subpopulation within each country for which the decline applies. This would be done for all countries and the overall decline would be the percentage difference between the original global population size and the current one. Unfortunately, estimates of country stock size are rare. Therefore, past declines were weighted by coral reef area (rather than population size) to give an overall decline figure. This method assumes that pristine densities of Nassau grouper were the same at all localities. This is probably not likely to have been the case but it enables a single figure to be derived, which is likely more representative of the global situation than the alternative, which would be to say that the decline lies between 55 and 99.5% (the lowest and highest documented decline rates).From the available data and most recent reports, Nassau subpopulations are likely to either be stable (e.g., the U.S.) or in decline (e.g., Cuba, Belize). Overall, it seems very likely (80-100%) that overall, the global population of Nassau grouper will continue to decline over the foreseeable future.There is no evidence of distinct subpopulations of Nassau grouper based on genetic work (mtDNA and microsatellites) of fish sampled from a number of sites in Florida, Cuba, Belize and the Bahamas (Sedberry et al. 1996). Therefore, it is considered that there is only one subpopulation with all individuals in it, that the population is not severely fragmented. There is no evidence of extreme fluctuations in the number of locations or subpopulations. (Ref. 54399)
United States: (Florida • Puerto Rico • Virginia)
Anguilla • Antigua • Antilles • Aruba • Bahamas • Barbados • Belize • Bermuda • Brazil • British Virgin Islands • Cayman Islands • Colombia • Costa Rica • Cuba • Dominica • Dominican Republic • Finland • French Guiana • Grenada • Guadeloupe • Guatemala • Guyana • Haiti • Honduras • Jamaica • Martinique • Mexico • Montserrat • Netherlands Antilles • Nicaragua • Panama • Poland • Puerto Rico • Saint Kitts and Nevis • Saint Lucia • Saint Vincent and the Grenadines • Suriname • Sweden • Trinidad and Tobago • Turks and Caicos Islands • United Kingdom • United States • US Virgin Islands • Venezuela