The Status of Queen Conch, Strombus gigas, Research in the Caribbean

An important scientific workshop on queen conch was held in Caracas, Ven­ ezuela, in July 1991. This workshop and the proceedings that emerged from it (Appeldoom and Rodriguez, 1994) pro­ vided a good background on the status of research on biology, fisheries, and mariculture of the queen conch. Be­ cause the general biology of the queen conch is already relatively well known, the purpose of this paper is to summa­ rize some of the important advances made in the study of queen conch since the 1991 workshop. Emphasis has been placed on topics related to the ecology of queen conch that are most relevant to fisheries management and stock re­ habilitation. In the following sections an attempt has been made to draw con­ clusions about habitat requirements for the species, mortality of juveniles as it relates to stock rehabilitation and en­ hancement, larval ecology and fisher­ ies oceanography of the species, and the conservation of reproductive stocks.