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Salinas-de-León P, Vaudo J, Logan R, Suarez-Moncada J, Shivji M. Longest recorded migration of a silky shark (Carcharhinus falciformis) reveals extensive use of international waters of the Tropical Eastern Pacific. JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY 2024. [PMID: 38757771 DOI: 10.1111/jfb.15788] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2024] [Revised: 04/23/2024] [Accepted: 04/30/2024] [Indexed: 05/18/2024]
Abstract
Despite being a heavily fished species, little is known about the movements of silky sharks (Carcharhinus falciformis). In this study, we report the longest (in duration and distance traveled) and most spatially extensive recorded migration for a silky shark. This shark, tagged with a fin-mount satellite transmitter at the Galapagos Islands, traveled >27,666 km over 546 days, making two westerly migrations into international waters as far as 4755 km from the tagging location. These extensive movements in an area with high international fishing effort highlights the importance of understanding silky shark migrations to inform management practices.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pelayo Salinas-de-León
- Charles Darwin Research Station, Charles Darwin Foundation, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
- Guy Harvey Research Institute and Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center, Nova Southeastern University, Dania Beach, Florida, USA
| | - Jeremy Vaudo
- Guy Harvey Research Institute and Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center, Nova Southeastern University, Dania Beach, Florida, USA
| | - Ryan Logan
- Guy Harvey Research Institute and Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center, Nova Southeastern University, Dania Beach, Florida, USA
| | | | - Mahmood Shivji
- Guy Harvey Research Institute and Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center, Nova Southeastern University, Dania Beach, Florida, USA
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2
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Beal AP, Hackerott S, Feldheim K, Gruber SH, Eirin‐Lopez JM. Age group
DNA
methylation differences in lemon sharks (
Negaprion brevirostris
): Implications for future age estimation tools. Ecol Evol 2022; 12:e9226. [PMID: 36052296 PMCID: PMC9425014 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.9226] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2022] [Revised: 07/05/2022] [Accepted: 07/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Age information is often non‐existent for most shark populations due to a lack of measurable physiological and morphological traits that can be used to estimate age. Recently, epigenetic clocks have been found to accurately estimate age for mammals, birds, and fish. However, since these clocks rely, among other things, on the availability of reference genomes, their application is hampered in non‐traditional model organisms lacking such molecular resources. The technique known as Methyl‐Sensitive Amplified Polymorphism (MSAP) has emerged as a valid alternative for studying DNA methylation biomarkers when reference genome information is missing, and large numbers of samples need to be processed. Accordingly, the MSAP technique was used in the present study to characterize global DNA methylation patterns in lemon sharks from three different age groups (juveniles, subadults, and adults). The obtained results reveal that, while MSAP analyses lack enough resolution as a standalone approach to infer age in these organisms, the global DNA methylation patterns observed using this technique displayed significant differences between age groups. Overall, these results confer that DNA methylation does change with age in sharks like what has been seen for other vertebrates and that MSAP could be useful as part of an epigenetics pipeline to infer the broad range of ages found in large samples sizes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andria Paige Beal
- Environmental Epigenetics Laboratory, Institute of Environment Florida International University Miami Florida USA
| | - Serena Hackerott
- Environmental Epigenetics Laboratory, Institute of Environment Florida International University Miami Florida USA
| | - Kevin Feldheim
- Pritzker Laboratory for Molecular Systematics and Evolution Field Museum of Natural History Chicago Illinois USA
| | | | - Jose M. Eirin‐Lopez
- Environmental Epigenetics Laboratory, Institute of Environment Florida International University Miami Florida USA
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3
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Wang Z, Da W, Negi CS, Ghimire PL, Wangdi K, Yadav PK, Pubu Z, Lama L, Yarpel K, Maunsell SC, Liu Y, Kunte K, Bawa KS, Yang D, Pierce NE. Profiling, monitoring and conserving caterpillar fungus in the Himalayan region using anchored hybrid enrichment markers. Proc Biol Sci 2022; 289:20212650. [PMID: 35473372 PMCID: PMC9043734 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.2650] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
The collection of caterpillar fungus accounts for 50–70% of the household income of thousands of Himalayan communities and has an estimated market value of $5–11 billion across Asia. However, Himalayan collectors are at multiple economic disadvantages compared with collectors on the Tibetan Plateau because their product is not legally recognized. Using a customized hybrid-enrichment probe set and market-grade caterpillar fungus (with samples up to 30 years old) from 94 production zones across Asia, we uncovered clear geography-based signatures of historical dispersal and significant isolation-by-distance among caterpillar fungus hosts. This high-throughput approach can readily distinguish samples from major production zones with definitive geographical resolution, especially for samples from the Himalayan region that form monophyletic clades in our analysis. Based on these results, we propose a two-step procedure to help local communities authenticate their produce and improve this multi-national trade-route without creating opportunities for illegal exports and other forms of economic exploitation. We argue that policymakers and conservation practitioners must encourage the fair trade of caterpillar fungus in addition to sustainable harvesting to support a trans-boundary conservation effort that is much needed for this natural commodity in the Himalayan region.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhengyang Wang
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Wa Da
- Tibetan Plateau Institute of Biology, Tibet Autonomous Region, Lhasa 850001, People's Republic of China
| | - Chandra Singh Negi
- Department of Zoology, M B Government Postgraduate College, Haldwani (Nainital) 263139, Uttarakhand, India
| | - Puspa Lal Ghimire
- Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Bioresources (ANSAB), Baneshwor, Kathmandu, Nepal
| | - Karma Wangdi
- Ugyen Wangchuck Institute for Conservation and Environmental Research, Lamai Goempa, Bumthang, Jakar 32001, Bhutan
| | - Pramod K Yadav
- Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-0735, USA
| | - Zhuoma Pubu
- Tibetan Plateau Institute of Biology, Tibet Autonomous Region, Lhasa 850001, People's Republic of China
| | - Laiku Lama
- Himalayan Herbs Traders, Baluwatar-4 Bagta Marga 161, Kathmandu, Nepal
| | | | - Sarah C Maunsell
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Yong Liu
- Institute of Plant Protection, Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Chengdu 610066, People's Republic of China
| | - Krushnamegh Kunte
- National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bengaluru 560065, India
| | - Kamaljit S Bawa
- University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA 02125, USA.,Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bangalore 560024, India
| | - Darong Yang
- Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, Yunnan 666303, People's Republic of China
| | - Naomi E Pierce
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
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What Is in Your Shark Fin Soup? Probably an Endangered Shark Species and a Bit of Mercury. Animals (Basel) 2022; 12:ani12070802. [PMID: 35405792 PMCID: PMC8997153 DOI: 10.3390/ani12070802] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2022] [Revised: 03/14/2022] [Accepted: 03/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Simple Summary Shark fin soup is consumed by many Asian communities throughout the world and is one of the main drivers of the demand for shark fin. The demand for shark products has seen shark populations decline by as much as 70%. The fins found in soups break down into a fibrous mass meaning that identifying the species of shark that a fin came from is impossible by visual methods. Here, we use molecular techniques to identify the species of sharks found in bowls of soup collected in Singapore. We identified a number of endangered species in the surveyed soups, and many of these species have been shown to contain high levels of mercury, a potent neurotoxin. It is highly likely that consumers of shark fin soup are consuming levels of mercury that are above safe allowable limits, and at the same time are contributing to the massive declines in global shark populations. Abstract Shark fin soup, consumed by Asian communities throughout the world, is one of the principal drivers of the demand of shark fins. This near USD 1 billion global industry has contributed to a shark population declines of up to 70%. In an effort to arrest these declines, the trade in several species of sharks is regulated under the auspices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Despite this legal framework, the dried fins of trade-regulated sharks are frequently sold in markets and consumed in shark fin soup. Shark fins found in soups break down into a fibrous mass of ceratotrichia, meaning that identifying the species of sharks in the soup becomes impossible by visual methods. In this paper, we use DNA barcoding to identify the species of sharks found in bowls of shark fin soup collected in Singapore. The most common species identified in our samples was the blue shark (Prionace glauca), a species listed as Near Threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List with a decreasing population, on which scientific data suggests catch limits should be imposed. We identified four other shark species that are listed on CITES Appendix II, and in total ten species that are assessed as Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Globally, the blue shark has been shown to contain levels of mercury that frequently exceed safe dose limits. Given the prevalence of this species in the examined soups and the global nature of the fin trade, it is extremely likely that consumers of shark fin soup will be exposed to unsafe levels of this neurotoxin.
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Domingues RR, Bunholi IV, Pinhal D, Antunes A, Mendonça FF. From molecule to conservation: DNA-based methods to overcome frontiers in the shark and ray fin trade. CONSERV GENET RESOUR 2021. [DOI: 10.1007/s12686-021-01194-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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