Addressing knowledge gaps in shark and ray research
Date:
March 10, 2022
Source:
Virginia Tech
Summary:
Sharks and rays are one of the most ancient vertebrate groups, as
well as one of the most endangered. Researchers still know very
little about many shark and ray species and the environments in
which they live, particularly rare species and those that dwell
in remote areas, where resources and capacity for conducting study
and monitoring are scarce.
FULL STORY ========================================================================== Sharks and rays are one of the most ancient vertebrate groups, as well
as one of the most endangered.
========================================================================== Researchers still know very little about many shark and ray species and
the environments in which they live, particularly rare species and those
that dwell in remote areas, where resources and capacity for conducting
study and monitoring are scarce.
To address these knowledge gaps, Francesco Ferretti, an assistant
professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation in the
College of Natural Resources and Environment, polled an international
team of scientists and practitioners to take a pulse of the greatest
issues that are present in shark research, marine conservation, and
fisheries science.
"In science, it is very important to know things. But it is even more
important to understand what you don't know. If you are able to do that,
then you can focus your efforts more effectively in that direction,"
said Ferretti, who is an affiliate of the Center for Coastal Studies and
the Global Change Center, both of which are housed in the Fralin Life
Sciences Institute. "In our review, we found that key opportunities
for addressing these threats and conserving these crucially important
animals come from technological advances, international coordination of research and action, and multi-stakeholder collaboration." Their review
was published in Endangered Species Research.
Ferretti and his colleagues selected 20 of the most pressing topics
in research and conservation of shark and ray populations. The issues
ranged from their ecology to the threats they face and management and conservation actions that need to be taken.
==========================================================================
A total of 47 experts from 35 institutions and 13 countries came together
to offer their current understandings, knowledge gaps, and what is,
in their opinion, the way forward.
"Sharks and rays are an amazing group of animals that occupy all oceanic
and coastal ecosystems of our planet," said Fiorenza Micheli, co-director
of Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions and co-author of the study. "This extraordinary diversity and key ecological functions and services are at
risk from many pressures -- overexploitation, pollution, habitat loss,
and climate change." The importance of sharks and rays in coastal marine ecosystems cannot be overstated. These animals are the top predators
in the food chain, and they are able to influence the abundance of prey populations, shape the structure and function of marine communities and
food webs, and bridge distant ecosystems together.
Unfortunately, these animals are particularly vulnerable to exploitation because of two reasons: their patterns of survival -- such as late
maturation and low offspring numbers -- and widespread exposure to
human-caused pressures.
"We have learned a great deal about some of the larger and more
charismatic shark species and in many parts of the world have established effective ongoing monitoring programs," said Salvador Jorgensen, a marine ecologist and researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz,
and a lead author on the study. "While we build on those successes, it
is imperative that we also shift our focus to lesser-known but equally important shark and ray species, transfering lessons learned to remote
habitats and rare species that have escaped scientific study but not the increasing pressures of human impact." To help solve this issue of data scarcity, Ferretti's lab is leveraging our fascination with sharks and infatuation with social media.
========================================================================== Ferretti's lab is using a new and intriguing piece of technology
called sharkPulse to help solve the scarcity of shark data. This is a crowdsourcing platform supported by seed funding from the Global Change
Center able to transform all images or media found on social networks
of shark occurrences into data that can be used for analysis.
The lab is tapping into social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Flickr. Additionally, sharkPulse allows citizen scientists
to share their own images from their mobile phones and validate the
streams of data that are coming from the social media platforms.
With permission of citizen scientists and access to their geolocation information and timestamps, researchers will be able to conduct habitat modeling analysis, perform trend and distribution analyses, and plan
more targeted field investigations.
Last year, Feretti used distribution models based on sharkPulse and other historical sighting record data on an expedition in the Sicilian Channel
to study the area's incredibly rare great white shark population. Great
white shark populations have plummeted as a result of overfishing in
the Mediterranean, raising the question of how many animals remain. They
intend to return to the Mediterranean in the spring of next year to tag
and follow more of the elusive animals.
But understanding more about shark behavior and habitats is more than
just filling in information gaps; it can also help us safeguard sharks
and ourselves from unintentional attacks.
"By understanding more sharks, we can also mitigate the risk of
interacting with these sharks because we know seasons where they are
active and the seasons when they are absent," said Ferretti. "You don't go
in the northern part of California and surf in November, because that's
a hot spot for white sharks. If you want to reduce your risk, go down to Southern California, where there are younger sharks and smaller sharks
with lower risk for them to interact in an injurious way." The review
will be especially beneficial to aspiring scientists and researchers
who want to stay up to date on the newest technologies and improve their studies on sharks.
"Reviews such as this are an incredible way to synthesize findings
from various studies and identify patterns, which may be particularly
useful in understanding the biology and ecology of some lesser-studied
species of sharks and rays," said Brendan Shea, a Ph.D. student in the
Ferretti lab. "Ultimately, we hope this review serves as a road map for
future work by identifying the critical knowledge gaps in shark and ray
science as well as some of the most promising approaches and technologies researchers can use to pursue them."
========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Virginia_Tech. Original written by
Kendall Daniels. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. SJ Jorgensen, F Micheli, TD White, KS Van Houtan, J Alfaro-Shigueto,
S
Andrzejaczek, NS Arnoldi, JK Baum, B Block, GL Britten, C Butner,
S Caballero, D Carden~osa, TK Chapple, S Clarke, E Corte's, NK
Dulvy, S Fowler, AJ Gallagher, E Gilman, BJ Godley, RT Graham, N
Hammerschlag, AV Harry, MR Heithaus, M Hutchinson, C Huveneers, CG
Lowe, LO Lucifora, T MacKeracher, JC Mangel, AP Barbosa Martins, DJ
McCauley, L McClenachan, C Mull, LJ Natanson, D Pauly, DA Pazmin~o,
JCA Pistevos, N Queiroz, G Roff, BD Shea, CA Simpfendorfer, DW Sims,
C Ward-Paige, B Worm, F Ferretti.
Emergent research and priorities for shark and ray conservation.
Endangered Species Research, 2022; 47: 171 DOI: 10.3354/esr01169 ==========================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220310115156.htm
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