A Tale on the Demersal and Bottom Dwelling Chondrichthyes in the South of Sicily through 20 Years of Scientific Survey

Geraci, Michele Luca; Ragonese, Sergio; Norrito, G.; Scannella, Danilo; Falsone, Fabio; Vitale, Sergio

doi:10.5772/intechopen.69333

Cited by 12 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Overall, the spatial distribution of these taxa highlighted a widespread distribution in Malta Island (GSA15) and a quite unbalanced distribution in the South of Sicily (GSA16), with two main hotspots, i.e., Adventure Bank and the waters close to Linosa Island ( Figure 3 , Figure 5 , and Figure 8 ). Generally, our results, especially for Adventure Bank and the waters of Linosa Island, are comparable to the spatial analysis reported by previous studies in the area (see, e.g., in [ 23 , 26 , 58 , 59 ]). Herein, present findings are summarily compared among species with data reported in the literature, in general for the Mediterranean Sea and in particular for the Strait of Sicily.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…In the Strait of Sicily, Giudicelli [ 57 ] in the middle of the 70th explored 10 fishing grounds between 70 and 400 m depths and reported a maximum of 23.3 kg/h of “Rays” (this corresponds to around 233 kg/km 2 ). Recently, in the GSA16, Geraci et al [ 26 ] found quite stable trends by analyzing the pooled BI and DI of the recorded batoids from 1994 to 2013, and the BI/DI ratio remained heterogeneous.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Only scattered data on distribution and abundance, and limited information on growth and unit stock identification, have been published for the Strait of Sicily sensu Jereb et [ 20 ]. In particular, contributions on batoids can be found for the Sicilian waters [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ], the Malta Island [ 28 ], and for Tunisian waters [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Batoid Abundances, Spatial Distribution, and Life History Traits in the Strait of Sicily (Central Mediterranean Sea): Bridging a Knowledge Gap through Three Decades of Survey

Geraci

Ragonese

Scannella

et al. 2021

Animals

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Batoid species play a key role in marine ecosystems but unfortunately they have globally declined over the last decades. Given the paucity of information, abundance data and the main life history traits for batoids, obtained through about three decades of bottom trawl surveys, are presented and discussed. The surveys were carried out in two areas of the Central Mediterranean (South of Sicily and Malta Island), in a timeframe ranging from 1990 to 2018. Excluding some batoids, the abundance trends were stable or increasing. Only R. clavata, R. miraletus, and D. oxyrinchus showed occurrence and abundance indexes notable enough to carry out more detailed analysis. In particular, spatial distribution analysis of these species highlighted the presence of two main hotspots in Sicilian waters whereas they seem more widespread in Malta. The lengths at first maturity (L50) were 695 and 860, 635 and 574, and 364 and 349 mm total length (TL), respectively, for females and males of D. oxyrinchus, R. clavata, and R. miraletus. The asymptotic lengths (L∞) and the curvature coefficients (K) were 1365 and 1240 (K = 0.11 and 0.26), 1260 and 1100 (K = 0.16 and 0.26), and 840 and 800 mm TL (K = 0.36 and 0.41), respectively, for females and males of D. oxyrinchus, R. clavata, and R. miraletus. The lack of detailed quantitative historical information on batoids of Sicily and Malta does not allow to analytically judge the current status of the stocks, although the higher abundance of some species within Malta raises some concern for the Sicilian counterpart. In conclusion, suitable actions to protect batoids in the investigated area are recommended.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Batoid Abundances, Spatial Distribution, and Life History Traits in the Strait of Sicily (Central Mediterranean Sea): Bridging a Knowledge Gap through Three Decades of Survey

Geraci

Ragonese

Scannella

et al. 2021

Animals

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“…However, due to their conserved dorsoventrally flattened body morphology, the identification of skates based solely on morphological characters can be problematic (Geraci et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite their apparent restrictive habitat preferences (e.g., soft bottom substrates), skates exhibit a high degree of biodiversity and endemism (Ebert and Compagno, 2007). However, due to their conserved dorsoventrally flattened body morphology, the identification of skates based solely on morphological characters can be problematic (Geraci et al ., 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combined COI barcode‐based methods to avoid mislabelling of threatened species of deep‐sea skates

Carugati

Melis

Cariani

et al. 2021

Animal Conservation

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Skates are characterised by conservative body morphology which hampers identification and leads to frequent taxonomic confusion and market mislabelling. Accurate specimen classification is crucial for reliable stock assessments and effective conservation plans, otherwise the risk of extinction could be unnoticed. The misclassification issue is evident for the genus Dipturus, distributed worldwide, from the continental shelf and slope to the deep sea. In this study, barcode cytochrome oxidase I gene (COI) sequences were used along with species delimitation and specimen assignment methods to improve taxonomy and zoogeography of species of conservation interest inhabiting the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. In this study, we provided new evidence of the occurence of D. nidarosiensis in the Central-Western Mediterranean Sea and the lack of Atlantic-Mediterranean genetic divergence. The Atlantic endangered species D. laevis and D. batis clustered together under the same molecular operational taxonomic unit (MOTU) with any delimitation methods used, while the assignment approach correctly discriminated specimens into the two species. These results provided evidence that the presence of the barcode gap is not an essential predictor of identification success, but the use of different approaches is crucially needed for specimen classification, especially when threshold-or tree-based methods result less powerful. The analyses also showed how different putative, vulnerable, species dwelling across South-Western Atlantic and South-Eastern Pacific are frequently misidentified in public sequence repositories. Our study emphasised the limits associated to public databases, highlighting the urgency to verify and implement the information deposited therein in order to guarantee accurate species identification and thus effective conservation measures for deep-sea skates.

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Adverse effects of plastic ingestion on the Mediterranean small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula)

Mancia

Chenet

Bono

et al. 2020

Marine Environmental Research

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A Tale on the Demersal and Bottom Dwelling Chondrichthyes in the South of Sicily through 20 Years of Scientific Survey

Cited by 12 publications

References 47 publications

Batoid Abundances, Spatial Distribution, and Life History Traits in the Strait of Sicily (Central Mediterranean Sea): Bridging a Knowledge Gap through Three Decades of Survey

Batoid Abundances, Spatial Distribution, and Life History Traits in the Strait of Sicily (Central Mediterranean Sea): Bridging a Knowledge Gap through Three Decades of Survey

Combined COI barcode‐based methods to avoid mislabelling of threatened species of deep‐sea skates

Adverse effects of plastic ingestion on the Mediterranean small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula)

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