Beyond the Meal: Trophic Controls by Pelagic and Demersal Chondrichthyes in Two Different Mediterranean Marine Food Webs
P. Ricci, L. Finotto, A. Barausse, C. Zampieri, C. Mazzoldi, G. Cipriano, F. P. De Luca, R. Carlucci

TL;DR
The study explores how pelagic and demersal sharks influence marine food webs in the Mediterranean, highlighting their roles as apex predators and the impact of fishing on their populations.
Contribution
The paper introduces a comparative analysis of trophic roles of pelagic and demersal Chondrichthyes in two distinct Mediterranean food webs using a mass-balanced modeling approach.
Findings
Pelagic sharks like the blue shark exert top-down control on mesoconsumers in the fourth trophic level.
Demersal sharks, such as the kitefin shark, show cascading impacts on lower trophic levels.
Bottom trawling and drifting longline fishing have significant negative impacts on both pelagic and demersal sharks.
Abstract
Pelagic and demersal Chondrichthyes can assume different patterns of trophic controls on marine food webs, sustaining the functioning of marine ecosystems. These species are impacted by fisheries requiring conservation measures to mitigate the loss of their ecological roles. Amass‐balanced modelling approach based on the Ecopath routine was adopted to investigate the trophic roles exhibited by Chondrichthyes through a comparative analysis of two food webs (Calabrian and Salento) within the Northern Ionian Sea (Central Mediterranean Sea). A total of 10 functional groups (FGs) of pelagic (3) and demersal (7) Chondrichthyes were represented in the models. Five ecological indicators were adopted in the analysis of Chondrichthyes: fractional trophic levels (TL) and their variance expressed by the Omnivory index; the importance of FGs as keystone species through the keystoneness indices and…
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Taxonomy
TopicsIchthyology and Marine Biology · Marine and fisheries research · Marine Ecology and Invasive Species
