Author:
Walls Rachel H. L.,Dulvy Nicholas K.
Abstract
AbstractThe loss of biodiversity is increasingly well understood on land, but trajectories of extinction risk remain largely unknown in the ocean. We present regional Red List Indices (RLIs) to track the extinction risk of 119 Northeast Atlantic and 72 Mediterranean shark and ray species primarily threatened by overfishing. We combine two IUCN workshop assessments from 2003/2005 and 2015 with a retrospective backcast assessment for 1980. We incorporate predicted categorisations for Data Deficient species from our previously published research. The percentage of threatened species rose from 1980 to 2015 from 29 to 41% (Northeast Atlantic) and 47 to 65% (Mediterranean Sea). There are as many threatened sharks and rays in Europe as there are threatened birds, but the threat level is nearly six times greater by percentage (41%, n = 56 of 136 vs. 7%, n = 56 of 792). The Northeast Atlantic RLI declined by 8% from 1980 to 2015, while the higher-risk Mediterranean RLI declined by 13%. Larger-bodied, shallow-distributed, slow-growing species and those with range boundaries within the region are more likely to have worsening status in the Northeast Atlantic. Conversely, long-established, severe threat levels obscure any potential relationships between species’ traits and the likelihood of worsening IUCN status in the Mediterranean Sea. These regional RLIs provide the first widespread evidence for increasing trends in regional shark and ray extinction risk and underscore that effective fisheries management is necessary to recover the ecosystem function of these predators.
Funder
Simon Fraser University Graduate Fellowship award program
Shark Conservation Fund
Directorate-General XII, Science, Research, and Development
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Reference90 articles.
1. McClenachan, L., Cooper, A. B., Carpenter, K. E. & Dulvy, N. K. Extinction risk and bottlenecks in the conservation of charismatic marine species. Conserv. Lett. 5, 1–8 (2011).
2. Dulvy, N. K., Jennings, S., Rogers, S. I. & Maxwell, D. L. Threat and decline in fishes: An indicator of marine biodiversity. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 63, 1267–1275 (2006).
3. CBD & UNEP. Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 and the Aichi Targets ‘Living in Harmony with Nature’. 2pp. https://www.cbd.int/doc/strategic-plan/2011-2020/Aichi-Targets-EN.pdf (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, Quebec, 2011).
4. Butchart, S. H. M. et al. Improvements to the Red List Index. PLoS ONE 2, 1–8 (2007).
5. Butchart, S. H. M. et al. Measuring global trends in the status of biodiversity: Red List Indices for birds. PLoS Biol. 2, 2294–2304 (2004).
Cited by
26 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献