When natural history collections reveal secrets on data deficient threatened species: Atlantic seahorses as a case study

Otero‐Ferrer, Francisco; González, José A.; Freitas, Mafalda; Araújo, Ricardo; Azevedo, José M. N.; Holt, William V.; Tuya, Fernando; Haroun, Ricardo

doi:10.1007/s10531-017-1385-x

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 39 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The cryptic nature of seahorses (genus Hippocampus ) has led to significant confusion regarding their taxonomy and ecology, which poses challenges to managing the activities that threaten these fishes. The most recent and comprehensive taxonomic review suggests there are two native species of seahorse in European waters, H. guttulatus and H. hippocampus (Lourie et al 2016 ), but considerable intraspecific variability in morphology within this genus (Lourie et al 1999b ; Otero-Ferrer et al 2017 ) has led to much confusion regarding their taxonomy, and the taxonomy and nomenclature of these species is not stable. Authors previously suggested many additional species within this geographic range, based on small morphometric differences (Kuiter 2009 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Curtis and Vincent 2005 ; Kitsos et al 2008 ; Ben Amor et al 2011 ; Caldwell and Vincent 2012 ; Filiz and Taskavak 2012 ; Gristina et al 2015 ), there is some consensus for a conservative view of seahorse taxonomy. Some reports also suggest range extensions into European waters by non-native species: H. algiricus presence in the Canary Islands (Otero-Ferrer et al 2015b , 2017 ), the Lessepsian migrant H. fuscus in the eastern Mediterranean (Golani and Fine 2002 ), and occasional rare migrants (e.g. H. erectus , Woodall et al 2009 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The two European seahorses H. guttulatus and H. hippocampus are the currently recognised names used in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species ( 2012 ) and both are currently assessed as Data Deficient (Woodall 2012a , b ). Both species have a large geographic range extending across most of Europe and North Africa including the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean and Black Seas (Lourie et al 1999b ; Otero-Ferrer et al 2017 ). Neither species is thought to be currently targeted by fisheries throughout most of their geographic range, but there is trade in west Africa of H. hippocampus (Cisneros-Montemayor et al 2016 ) and a new and increasing fishery for H. guttulatus in the Ria Formosa in Portugal (M. Correia, pers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

A synthesis of European seahorse taxonomy, population structure, and habitat use as a basis for assessment, monitoring and conservation

et al. 2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Accurate taxonomy, population demography, and habitat descriptors inform species threat assessments and the design of effective conservation measures. Here we combine published studies with new genetic, morphological and habitat data that were collected from seahorse populations located along the European and North African coastlines to help inform management decisions for European seahorses. This study confirms the presence of only two native seahorse species (Hippocampus guttulatus and H. hippocampus) across Europe, with sporadic occurrence of non-native seahorse species in European waters. For the two native species, our findings demonstrate that highly variable morphological characteristics, such as size and presence or number of cirri, are unreliable for distinguishing species. Both species exhibit sex dimorphism with females being significantly larger. Across its range, H. guttulatus were larger and found at higher densities in cooler waters, and individuals in the Black Sea were significantly smaller than in other populations. H. hippocampus were significantly larger in Senegal. Hippocampus guttulatus tends to have higher density populations than H. hippocampus when they occur sympatrically. Although these species are often associated with seagrass beds, data show both species inhabit a wide variety of shallow habitats and use a mixture of holdfasts. We suggest an international mosaic of protected areas focused on multiple habitat types as the first step to successful assessment, monitoring and conservation management of these Data Deficient species.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00227-017-3274-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A synthesis of European seahorse taxonomy, population structure, and habitat use as a basis for assessment, monitoring and conservation

et al. 2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Ello nos lleva a valorar aún más el papel que desempeñan los museos de ciencias naturales, en concreto, sus colecciones, consideradas…"ventanas al pasado, información del presente y ayuda para predecir el futuro" (Kress, 2014), y que almacenan alrededor de tres billones de especímenes, algunos pertenecientes a especies aún ignotas o mal determinadas (Kress, op.cit. ; Smith & Blagoderov, 2012;Otero-Ferrer et al, 2017).…”

Section: Pape L De L Os Muse Os De Cie Ncias Nat Ural E Sunclassified

Colecciones en museos de Ciencias Naturales: herramientas esenciales para resolución de problemas actuales

Martín¹

2017

Vieraea

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Biodiversity specimens, such as dried, pressed plants housed in herbaria, are a significant source of species distribution data (e.g., Otero-Ferrer et al 2017), as each specimen represents an occurrence of a species at a certain place and time. Recent efforts to digitize biodiversity specimen data have made millions of specimen records and images publically available on online portals (e.g., idigbio.org).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid enhancement of biodiversity occurrence records using unconventional specimen data

Pearson

2018

Biodivers Conserv

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Distributions of taxa across time and space are central to understanding biodiversity and biotic change, yet currently available occurrence data, drawn from biodiversity specimen records and observational datasets, are often insufficient to answer many driving questions. Records of "associated taxa," taxa co-occurring with a specimen at the time and place of collection, have the potential to fill data gaps and expand the spatiotemporal scope of current occurrence records. I developed a method to extract associated taxon records from 84,328 digitized specimen records and examined the potential of these data to improve the quantity and quality of existing species occurrence data. Adding associated taxon records increased the size of the test dataset by 18.5%, spanned multiple decades , and potentially extended the known range of 217 taxa in Florida and up to 1500 taxa in the United States, demonstrating the capacity of these records to deepen our understanding of changes in the distributions of taxa on Earth. These results suggest that increased attention to documenting associated taxa could be a promising way to maximize the impact of every collecting event.

show abstract

When natural history collections reveal secrets on data deficient threatened species: Atlantic seahorses as a case study

Cited by 12 publications

References 39 publications

A synthesis of European seahorse taxonomy, population structure, and habitat use as a basis for assessment, monitoring and conservation

A synthesis of European seahorse taxonomy, population structure, and habitat use as a basis for assessment, monitoring and conservation

Colecciones en museos de Ciencias Naturales: herramientas esenciales para resolución de problemas actuales

Rapid enhancement of biodiversity occurrence records using unconventional specimen data

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About