Fig. 1: Declines in functional richness over time.
From: Long term declines in the functional diversity of sharks in the coastal oceans of eastern Australia
The functional richness of targeted sharks decreased dramatically from 1962 to 2019. A These declines manifest as striking reductions in the functional richness of targeted sharks based on morphological and ecological species traits, and are followed by increases in the functional richness of non-target species based on morphological and ecological species traits. B These overall changes in functional richness manifest themselves in a shift in the ecological functioning of coastal ecosystems. C Finally, ecological functioning, which is represented by the rate at which drumline baits are removed is significantly correlated with functional richness of targeted species based on morphological traits. Grey intervals represent the 95% credible intervals for the Bayesian GAMM and n = 5336 independent samples.
