Cumulative effects of environmental changes and fishing on data-limited marine populations in the tropical Atlantic

ongoing

"While climate change is the emerging threat, overfishing has been the primary driver of biodiversity loss in the oceans over the past decade and remains so today. Our current understanding is biased towards the most commercially significant species, which are usually well-studied and managed. The lack of data hinders effective conservation and management of marine resources, exacerbating the biodiversity crisis and threatening food security and income in many countries in the Global South. The goal of my project is to elucidate how exploited and threatened species, whether rich or poor in data, respond to the cumulative effects of environmental changes and human activities (primarily fishing) to promote sustainable management of natural resources, especially in the Global South countries that depend on them. My research project will focus mainly on sharks and rays distributed in the tropical Atlantic zone—westward, from the Caribbean to Brazil, and eastward, in the Gulf of Guinea (from Senegal to Gabon)—and will be based on the ""Robin Hood"" approach. This approach, integrating fundamental ecological concepts, will allow ""borrowing"" information from data-rich species to improve the estimation of population trajectories for all species, especially those lacking data. This new simultaneous understanding of life histories and demographic processes will be the first step toward understanding the mechanisms determining equilibrium population size, estimating historical and future population sizes, species extinction risk, and fisheries management points. My research project aligns with the major European research initiatives (EU Biodiversity 2030) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 14 of the 2030 Agenda on the conservation and sustainable use of oceans. It supports the transition from traditional single-species fisheries management to a community and ecosystem-based approach, including bycatch species."