Shark Ecology and Conservation Management

Sharks occupy critical functional roles as apex predators and mesopredators across marine ecosystems. They structure food webs, regulate prey populations and support ecosystem resilience through top-down control. Over the last half century, intensification of fisheries, habitat degradation, pollution and climate change have driven widespread declines in abundance, body size and distribution. Critical habitats such as coral reefs, mangroves and coastal nurseries face compounded losses of shark diversity and the services they provide, with direct consequences for livelihoods, food security and ecosystem function.

Conservation management has evolved towards integrated approaches that couple science-based fisheries regulations with spatial protection, gear modifications and trade controls. Marine Protected Areas, catch limits and bycatch mitigation measures aim to curb exploitation and promote recovery, while telemetry and population assessments inform dynamic management in the face of climate and anthropogenic pressures. International agreements and national legislation shape multi-jurisdictional strategies, recognising the migratory connectivity that characterises many shark populations.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent work quantifying extinction risk in coral-reef sharks and rays has revealed that nearly three-fifths of species are threatened, with overfishing compounded by warming seas and habitat loss driving declines in body size and abundance. Analysis of population trajectories over five decades highlights that robust local protections combined with broad-scale fisheries management and habitat restoration are essential to halt ongoing losses. Fisheries-independent catch records along temperate and tropical coastlines document declines of 74–92% in catch per unit effort for key apex taxa, indicating regional depletion and reduced likelihood of recovery without stringent fishing controls and effective enforcement. Satellite-tracking studies of highly mobile tiger sharks demonstrate repeated, large-scale migrations between coral reefs and oceanic zones, with strong philopatry to overwintering sites. These findings underscore the need for dynamic, transboundary spatial planning to safeguard critical habitats across migratory corridors.

Shark Ecology and Conservation Management publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in shark ecology and conservation management across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

IUCN Red List: A global inventory assessing extinction risk of species based on standardised criteria.

Catch per unit effort (CPUE): A measure of fishery yield relative to the effort expended, used as an index of abundance.

Philopatry: The tendency of an organism to return to or remain in its natal or preferred habitat.

Bycatch: Unintended capture of non-target species during fishing operations.

Marine Protected Area (MPA): A designated region of the ocean where human activities are managed to conserve biodiversity and resources.

References

1. Half a century of rising extinction risk of coral reef sharks and rays. Nature Communications (2023).
2. Decline of coastal apex shark populations over the past half century. Communications Biology (2018).
3. Repeated, long-distance migrations by a philopatric predator targeting highly contrasting ecosystems. Scientific Reports (2015).
4. Overfishing drives over one-third of all sharks and rays toward a global extinction crisis. Current Biology (2021).
5. Species composition of the international shark fin trade assessed through a retail‐market survey in Hong Kong. Conservation Biology (2017).