The occurrence of the provisional Brazilian subspecies of spiny lobster (Panulirus argus westonii) in Florida waters*

The Caribbean spiny lobster, Panulirus argus, is distributed from Brazil throughout the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico to approximately North Carolina and Bermuda (Holthius, 1991). It supports major commercial fi sheries in Florida, the Caribbean and Brazil. Commercially, P. argus is especially important to the state of Florida, where the spiny lobster fi shery ranks second only to shrimp in terms of economic value. There is also a signifi cant recreational fi shery for P. argus, particularly in Florida. A number of studies have been initiated to gather information to manage the lobster resource carefully. Several studies have used genetic techniques to examine population-level patterns of differentiation to delineate reproductively isolated stocks of P. argus. Evidence of the stock structure of spiny lobster populations could then be used to implement more effective fi shery management plans. These studies have provided somewhat ambiguous results. Using allozymes, Menzies and Kerrigan (1979) and Menzies (1981) provided some evidence for genetic differences among populations, but more recent studies using restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of mitochondrial DNA have The occurrence of the provisional Brazilian subspecies of spiny lobster (Panulirus argus westonii) in Florida waters*