The new study was led by Proyecto Mantas Ecuador of Fundación Megafauna Marina del Ecuador, a conservation organization based in Ecuador, in collaboration with The Manta Trust, the Marine Megafauna Foundation and the Ocean Ecology Lab at OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute, which is led by Stewart. The biggest threat to oceanic manta rays is commercial fishing, both as the target of some fisheries and as unintentional bycatch in many others. Endangered Species Act in 2018, and in 2019 their threat category increased from vulnerable to endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List. Oceanic manta rays were listed as threatened under the U.S. They are filter feeders that eat large quantities of krill and other zooplankton and tend to live in small subpopulations in tropical, subtropical and temperate waters, spending much of their time in the open ocean. Oceanic manta rays are the largest species of ray, with wingspans that can reach more than 20 feet. In this area, we’ve estimated that the population is more than 22,000 mantas, which is unprecedented.” In other regions, we typically have population estimates of 1,000 to 2,000 animals, which makes this species very vulnerable. “It’s clear that something different is happening here,” Stewart said. The findings, just reported in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, indicate that while other populations of oceanic manta rays are typically small and vulnerable to human impacts, this population is large and potentially quite healthy, said Joshua Stewart, an assistant professor with the Marine Mammal Institute in OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences and a co-author of the paper. – Scientists have identified off the coast of Ecuador a distinct population of oceanic manta rays that is more than 10 times larger than any other known subpopulation of the species.
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