Dataset Information

Global collision-risk hotspots of marine traffic and the world's largest fish, the whale shark.

ABSTRACT: Marine traffic is increasing globally yet collisions with endangered megafauna such as whales, sea turtles, and planktivorous sharks go largely undetected or unreported. Collisions leading to mortality can have population-level consequences for endangered species. Hence, identifying simultaneous space use of megafauna and shipping throughout ranges may reveal as-yet-unknown spatial targets requiring conservation. However, global studies tracking megafauna and shipping occurrences are lacking. Here we combine satellite-tracked movements of the whale shark, Rhincodon typus, and vessel activity to show that 92% of sharks’ horizontal space use and nearly 50% of vertical space use overlap with persistent large vessel (>300 gross tons) traffic. Collision-risk estimates correlated with reported whale shark mortality from ship strikes, indicating higher mortality in areas with greatest overlap. Hotspots of potential collision risk were evident in all major oceans, predominantly from overlap with cargo and tanker vessels, and were concentrated in gulf regions, where dense traffic co-occurred with seasonal shark movements. Nearly a third of whale shark hotspots overlapped with the highest collision-risk areas, with the last known locations of tracked sharks coinciding with busier shipping routes more often than expected. Depth-recording tags provided evidence for sinking, likely dead, whale sharks, suggesting substantial “cryptic” lethal ship strikes are possible, which could explain why whale shark population declines continue despite international protection and low fishing-induced mortality. Mitigation measures to reduce ship-strike risk should be considered to conserve this species and other ocean giants that are likely experiencing similar impacts from growing global vessel traffic.

SUBMITTER: Womersley FC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9171791 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Global collision-risk hotspots of marine traffic and the world's largest fish, the whale shark.

Womersley Freya C FC Humphries Nicolas E NE Queiroz Nuno N Vedor Marisa M da Costa Ivo I Furtado Miguel M Tyminski John P JP Abrantes Katya K Araujo Gonzalo G Bach Steffen S SS Barnett Adam A Berumen Michael L ML Bessudo Lion Sandra S Braun Camrin D CD Clingham Elizabeth E Cochran Jesse E M JEM de la Parra Rafael R Diamant Stella S Dove Alistair D M ADM Dudgeon Christine L CL Erdmann Mark V MV Espinoza Eduardo E Fitzpatrick Richard R Cano Jaime González JG Green Jonathan R JR Guzman Hector M HM Hardenstine Royale R Hasan Abdi A Hazin Fábio H V FHV Hearn Alex R AR Hueter Robert E RE Jaidah Mohammed Y MY Labaja Jessica J Ladino Felipe F Macena Bruno C L BCL Morris John J JJ Norman Bradley M BM Peñaherrera-Palma Cesar C Pierce Simon J SJ Quintero Lina M LM Ramírez-Macías Dení D Reynolds Samantha D SD Richardson Anthony J AJ Robinson David P DP Rohner Christoph A CA Rowat David R L DRL Sheaves Marcus M Shivji Mahmood S MS Sianipar Abraham B AB Skomal Gregory B GB Soler German G Syakurachman Ismail I Thorrold Simon R SR Webb D Harry DH Wetherbee Bradley M BM White Timothy D TD Clavelle Tyler T Kroodsma David A DA Thums Michele M Ferreira Luciana C LC Meekan Mark G MG Arrowsmith Lucy M LM Lester Emily K EK Meyers Megan M MM Peel Lauren R LR Sequeira Ana M M AMM Eguíluz Victor M VM Duarte Carlos M CM Sims David W DW

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20220509 20

Marine traffic is increasing globally yet collisions with endangered megafauna such as whales, sea turtles, and planktivorous sharks go largely undetected or unreported. Collisions leading to mortality can have population-level consequences for endangered species. Hence, identifying simultaneous space use of megafauna and shipping throughout ranges may reveal as-yet-unknown spatial targets requiring conservation. However, global studies tracking megafauna and shipping occurrences are lacking. He ...[more]

PMID: 35533277

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Project description:BackgroundThe whale shark (Rhincodon typus) has by far the largest body size of any elasmobranch (shark or ray) species. Therefore, it is also the largest extant species of the paraphyletic assemblage commonly referred to as fishes. As both a phenotypic extreme and a member of the group Chondrichthyes - the sister group to the remaining gnathostomes, which includes all tetrapods and therefore also humans - its genome is of substantial comparative interest. Whale sharks are also listed as an endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of threatened species and are of growing popularity as both a target of ecotourism and as a charismatic conservation ambassador for the pelagic ecosystem. A genome map for this species would aid in defining effective conservation units and understanding global population structure.ResultsWe characterised the nuclear genome of the whale shark using next generation sequencing (454, Illumina) and de novo assembly and annotation methods, based on material collected from the Georgia Aquarium. The data set consisted of 878,654,233 reads, which yielded a draft assembly of 1,213,200 contigs and 997,976 scaffolds. The estimated genome size was 3.44Gb. As expected, the proteome of the whale shark was most closely related to the only other complete genome of a cartilaginous fish, the holocephalan elephant shark. The whale shark contained a novel Toll-like-receptor (TLR) protein with sequence similarity to both the TLR4 and TLR13 proteins of mammals and TLR21 of teleosts. The data are publicly available on GenBank, FigShare, and from the NCBI Short Read Archive under accession number SRP044374.ConclusionsThis represents the first shotgun elasmobranch genome and will aid studies of molecular systematics, biogeography, genetic differentiation, and conservation genetics in this and other shark species, as well as providing comparative data for studies of evolutionary biology and immunology across the jawed vertebrate lineages.

Dataset Information

Global collision-risk hotspots of marine traffic and the world's largest fish, the whale shark.

Publications

Global collision-risk hotspots of marine traffic and the world's largest fish, the whale shark.

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