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      Drivers of reef shark abundance and biomass in the Solomon Islands

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          Abstract

          Remote island nations face a number of challenges in addressing concerns about shark population status, including access to rigorously collected data and resources to manage fisheries. At present, very little data are available on shark populations in the Solomon Islands and scientific surveys to document shark and ray diversity and distribution have not been completed. We aimed to provide a baseline of the relative abundance and diversity of reef sharks and rays and assess the major drivers of reef shark abundance/biomass in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands using stereo baited remote underwater video. On average reef sharks were more abundant than in surrounding countries such as Fiji and Indonesia, yet below that of remote islands without historical fishing pressure, suggesting populations are relatively healthy but not pristine. We also assessed the influence of location, habitat type/complexity, depth and prey biomass on reef shark abundance and biomass. Location was the most important factor driving reef shark abundance and biomass with two times the abundance and a 43% greater biomass of reef sharks in the more remote locations, suggesting fishing may be impacting sharks in some areas. Our results give a much needed baseline and suggest that reef shark populations are still relatively unexploited, providing an opportunity for improved management of sharks and rays in the Solomon Islands.

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          Most cited references53

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          CONFRONTING MULTICOLLINEARITY IN ECOLOGICAL MULTIPLE REGRESSION

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            Cascading effects of the loss of apex predatory sharks from a coastal ocean.

            Impacts of chronic overfishing are evident in population depletions worldwide, yet indirect ecosystem effects induced by predator removal from oceanic food webs remain unpredictable. As abundances of all 11 great sharks that consume other elasmobranchs (rays, skates, and small sharks) fell over the past 35 years, 12 of 14 of these prey species increased in coastal northwest Atlantic ecosystems. Effects of this community restructuring have cascaded downward from the cownose ray, whose enhanced predation on its bay scallop prey was sufficient to terminate a century-long scallop fishery. Analogous top-down effects may be a predictable consequence of eliminating entire functional groups of predators.
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              Global catches, exploitation rates, and rebuilding options for sharks

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Formal analysisRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: ResourcesRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Formal analysisRole: ResourcesRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: ResourcesRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Funding acquisitionRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Writing – original draft
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                30 July 2018
                2018
                : 13
                : 7
                : e0200960
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Bentley Campus, Western Australia, Australia
                [2 ] Marine Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York, United States of America
                [3 ] The UWA Oceans Institute and School of Biological Sciences (M470), Faculty of Science, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia
                [4 ] Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History, New York, United States of America
                [5 ] Wildlife Conservation Society, Melanesia Regional Program, Suva, Fiji
                [6 ] Centre for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries & Aquaculture, and College of Marine and Environmental Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
                [7 ] Coastal and Marine Management, Munda, Solomon Islands
                Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, AUSTRALIA
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3090-9763
                Article
                PONE-D-18-08569
                10.1371/journal.pone.0200960
                6066198
                30059525
                3d5c4e2a-7aa5-41f1-93aa-315cbde484c8
                © 2018 Goetze et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 21 March 2018
                : 4 July 2018
                Page count
                Figures: 4, Tables: 1, Pages: 16
                Funding
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000870, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation;
                Award ID: #13-105118-000-INP
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100008982, National Science Foundation;
                Award ID: #EF-1427453
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Paul G. Allen Philantrhopies
                Award ID: 11861
                Award Recipient : Colin Simpfendorfer
                This work is contribution #3 of the Global FinPrint Project, funded by Paul G. Allen Philanthropies under grant number 11861. Additional support was provided by the Wildlife Conservation Society from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (grant #13-105118-000-INP) and by the National Science Foundation (grant #EF-1427453). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Eukaryota
                Animals
                Vertebrates
                Fish
                Chondrichthyes
                Elasmobranchii
                Sharks
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Marine Biology
                Coral Reefs
                Earth Sciences
                Marine and Aquatic Sciences
                Marine Biology
                Coral Reefs
                Earth Sciences
                Marine and Aquatic Sciences
                Reefs
                Coral Reefs
                Earth Sciences
                Marine and Aquatic Sciences
                Reefs
                People and places
                Geographical locations
                Oceania
                Solomon Islands
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Eukaryota
                Animals
                Vertebrates
                Fish
                Chondrichthyes
                Elasmobranchii
                Skates and Rays
                Earth Sciences
                Geomorphology
                Topography
                Landforms
                Islands
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Agriculture
                Fisheries
                Research and Analysis Methods
                Research Design
                Survey Research
                Surveys
                Custom metadata
                All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

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