Biodiversity and Habitat Preferences of Living Sharks in the Southeast Asian Region

Abstract

This paper reviews the biodiversity and habitat preferences of living sharks in the Southeast Asian region accumulated from published literatures including journals, books, proceedings, unpublished technical papers, and technical reports as well as authors’ knowledge and experiences working in this field. A total of 196 species of sharks from nine orders and 30 families have been recorded inhabiting from fresh water to deep ocean in this region. Indonesia recorded the highest diversity with 114 species from 27 families followed by the Philippines with 96 species (27 families), Thailand 76 species (21 families), Vietnam 70 species (23 families), Malaysia 68 species (19 families), Myanmar 64 species (19 families), Brunei Darussalam 45 species (15 families), and Cambodia with 26 species from 10 families. Many species still need to be confirmed and are most probably new species. In term of habitat preferences, 83 species of sharks (42.3%) inhabit continental/insular shelves (SHL) followed by continental/insular slopes (SLO) with 48 species (24.5%), shelf to slope (SHS) with 26 species (13.3%), and shelf to oceanic (SHO) with 16 species (8.2%). Only nine species (4.6%) inhabit oceanic and six species (4%) obligate freshwater and euryhaline freshwater/shelves.

Setting Conservation Priorities for Marine Sharks in China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Seas: What Are the Benefits of a 30% Conservation Target?

“…In the present study, 149 shark species from nine orders and 32 families were selected (Supplementary Material) according to data availability. These species account for more than 76% of all the sharks in this region (Zhang and Yang, 2005;Ali et al, 2018;Wu and Zhong, 2021). This encompasses almost all the shark orders and families in China and the ASEAN seas, from the Carcharhiniformes which is the largest group with 78 species, to the Pristiophoriformes which has one species.…”

“…Hotspots of species richness have been found in Japan, Taiwan, eastern Australia, southeast Africa, and South America (Lucifora et al, 2011;Dulvy et al, 2014). The China and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) seas are among the regions with the highest marine shark species richness, with 146 species from 21 families, and 196 species from 30 families recorded in Chinese waters and Southeast Asia, respectively (Zhang and Yang, 2005;Ali et al, 2018;Wu and Zhong, 2021). Southeast Asia is one of the areas with the highest number of endangered and data deficient shark species (Dulvy et al, 2017).…”

“…Southeast Asia is one of the areas with the highest number of endangered and data deficient shark species (Dulvy et al, 2017). However, research on sharks in this area has predominantly focused on taxonomy (Zhu, 1960;Ali et al, 2018), fisheries (Lam and Sadovy de Mitcheson, 2011;Friedman et al, 2018) and trade (Van Houtan et al, 2020;Prasetyo et al, 2021). The distribution pattern of shark biodiversity is still poorly understood.…”

Disentangling the shark and ray trade in Indonesia to reconcile conservation with food security

“…A few regions of the world represent remarkable hotspots for elasmobranch diversity, making them focal targets for biodiversity conservation. Indonesia, with its many islands and diverse habitats at the interface between two ocean basins, is one such region, believed to harbour about 20% of global shark diversity (119 of 509 living sharks; 106 of 633 living rays), covering the whole spectrum of functional traits, from highly migratory oceanic species, to reef-associated, and sedentary bottom-dwelling coastal endemic taxa [15-17]. Indonesia is also the fourth most populous country in the world, with many communities traditionally associated with the sea [18].…”

“…CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license perpetuity. It is made available under a preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in The copyright holder for this this version posted December 10, 2020. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.08.416214 doi: bioRxiv preprint 3 sharks; 106 of 633 living rays), covering the whole spectrum of functional traits, from highly migratory oceanic species, to reef-associated, and sedentary bottom-dwelling coastal endemic taxa [15][16][17]. Indonesia is also the fourth most populous country in the world, with many communities traditionally associated with the sea [18].…”