Looks like Neil's research has yielded some spectacular results!
Range extension of the Endangered great hammerhead shark Sphyrna mokarran in the Northwest Atlantic: preliminary data and significance for conservation
Neil Hammerschlag, Austin J. Gallagher, Dominique M. Lazarre, Curt Slonim
ABSTRACT:
We provide pilot data from a satellite-tracked great hammerhead shark Sphyrna mokarran in the Atlantic, representing the first such data on this species in the literature.
The 250 cm shark was tagged off the coast of the middle-Florida Keys (USA) and transmitted for 62 d. During this time it migrated a minimum distance of ~1200 km northeast from the coast of Florida, into pelagic international waters of the Northwest Atlantic. When compared to the primary literature, this migration represented a northeasterly range extension for this species off the continental slope in the Atlantic. The significance of this range extension is discussed in terms of the vulnerability of S. mokarran to target and non-target fisheries.
This very much reminds me of those Tiger Shark migrations!
Which very obviously begs the question, what is there of interest in the middle of the Atlantic???
Stories here and here, and more once I get my hands on the paper.
My only grievance: this!
When will everybody finally choose to publish in open access journals - outreach & communication are as important as the research proper!
Range extension of the Endangered great hammerhead shark Sphyrna mokarran in the Northwest Atlantic: preliminary data and significance for conservation
Neil Hammerschlag, Austin J. Gallagher, Dominique M. Lazarre, Curt Slonim
ABSTRACT:
We provide pilot data from a satellite-tracked great hammerhead shark Sphyrna mokarran in the Atlantic, representing the first such data on this species in the literature.
The 250 cm shark was tagged off the coast of the middle-Florida Keys (USA) and transmitted for 62 d. During this time it migrated a minimum distance of ~1200 km northeast from the coast of Florida, into pelagic international waters of the Northwest Atlantic. When compared to the primary literature, this migration represented a northeasterly range extension for this species off the continental slope in the Atlantic. The significance of this range extension is discussed in terms of the vulnerability of S. mokarran to target and non-target fisheries.
This very much reminds me of those Tiger Shark migrations!
Which very obviously begs the question, what is there of interest in the middle of the Atlantic???
Stories here and here, and more once I get my hands on the paper.
My only grievance: this!
When will everybody finally choose to publish in open access journals - outreach & communication are as important as the research proper!
1 comment:
Open access is less a matter of choice than mere money. For Neil et al. to have their paper published in ESR open access it would have cost 700 Euros. Our paper published recently in PLoS ONE (an open access only online journal) was 1350 USD. Funding agencies being more and more penny-pinching these days, such amounts may be prohibitive. Or look at it this way: not publish it open access is e.g. one satellite (or several acoustic) tag(s) more and thus more data - tempting for a researcher ... but I of course fully agree: it would be desirable to have all good research published in peer-reviewed open access journals.
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