| Popis: |
Interest in elasmobranch biodiversity and taxonomy has grown in recent years, catalyzed primarily by four influences: (1) the large number of new species that have been described over the past 30 years (e.g., Last and Stevens, 2009); (2) the recognition that many species of elasmobranchs, several of which have not yet been formally described, may be threatened with extinction from fishing pressures and habitat destruction (Stevens et al., 2000); (3) the growing interest in DNA “barcoding” as a tool to augment taxonomic description (e.g., Ward et al., 2007); and (4) an emerging recognition of the important role that elasmobranchs play as top predators in marine ecosystems (Heithaus et al., 2008). Increasingly, elasmobranch workers across a wide range of fields of science, both pure and applied, are recognizing the importance of an accurate species-level taxonomy. Fisheries scientists are ever more keenly aware of the need for accurate species-level assessments of catches to manage fisheries effectively. Ecologists have become more careful to ensure that the animals to which life history attributes are ascribed constitute distinct species rather than assemblages of closely related congeners with potentially different ecological roles and life history attributes. Finally, conservation biologists are beginning to recognize how critically important it is to have an accurate understanding of species compositions based on careful taxonomy to prioritize and manage units of biodiversity for conservation (Griffiths et al., 2010; Iglesias et al., 2009; White and Kyne, 2010). CONTENTS |
