Ichthyology and Marine Biology

Sharks and rays have patrolled Earth's oceans for more than 400 million years, yet within a few decades of industrial fishing their populations have collapsed at a pace that outstrips our ability to monitor or understand them. Researchers working at the intersection of ichthyology and marine conservation reconstruct how these animals move across ocean basins, how they are related to one another through deep evolutionary history, and how their removal cascades through entire marine ecosystems. A central tension driving current work is that the life-history traits making sharks and rays such effective apex predators — slow reproduction, late maturity, long migrations — also make their populations exceptionally vulnerable to overharvest and slow to recover once depleted. Open questions include how accurately species-level phylogenies can guide conservation prioritization, and whether habitat protection alone can offset the ongoing pressure of targeted and incidental fisheries catch.

Works

189,116

Total citations

631,272

Keywords

SharksRaysConservationEcologyFisheriesPhylogeny