Are Artificial Witham Surface Collectors Adequate Indicators of Caribbean Spiny Lobster, Panulirus argus, Recruitment?

Understanding the local dynamics of Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) postlarval influx, settlement, and recruitment may be essential for the responsible management of this important and heavily exploited resource. Most lobster recruitment research programs in the Caribbean employ derivations of the Witham -type surface collector to monitor postlarval (puerulus) lobster influx. However, the relevance of data obtained from surface collectors with respect to the estimation of actual puerulus influx, settlement, or recruitment to subsequent benthic juvenile stages remains untested. We investigated that relevance on regional (i.e., tens of kilometers) and local (i.e., tens of meters) scales by examining the quantitative relationships between the following: Surface collector catch of pueruli Planktonic density of pueruli Benthic settlement of pueruli Recruitment to the postalgal juvenile stag