Ocean-wide tracking of pelagic sharks reveals extent of overlap with longline fishing hotspots.

ABSTRACT: Overfishing is arguably the greatest ecological threat facing the oceans, yet catches of many highly migratory fishes including oceanic sharks remain largely unregulated with poor monitoring and data reporting. Oceanic shark conservation is hampered by basic knowledge gaps about where sharks aggregate across population ranges and precisely where they overlap with fishers. Using satellite tracking data from six shark species across the North Atlantic, we show that pelagic sharks occupy predictable habitat hotspots of high space use. Movement modeling showed sharks preferred habitats characterized by strong sea surface-temperature gradients (fronts) over other available habitats. However, simultaneous Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking of the entire Spanish and Portuguese longline-vess

SUBMITTER: Queiroz N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4760806 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature