Overfishing and climate change elevate extinction risk of endemic sharks and rays in the southwest Indian Ocean hotspot.

Here, we summarise the extinction risk of the sharks and rays endemic to coastal, shelf, and slope waters of the southwest Indian Ocean and adjacent waters (SWIO+, Namibia to Kenya, including SWIO islands). This region is a hotspot of endemic and evolutionarily distinct sharks and rays. Nearly one-fifth (n = 13 of 70, 18.

Local adaptation with gene flow in a highly dispersive shark.

Adaptive divergence in response to environmental clines are expected to be common in species occupying heterogeneous environments. Despite numerous advances in techniques appropriate for non-model species, gene-environment association studies in elasmobranchs are still scarce. The bronze whaler or copper shark () is a large coastal shark with a wide distribution and one of the most exploited elasmobranchs in southern Africa.

Using baited remote underwater videos (BRUVs) to characterize chondrichthyan communities in a global biodiversity hotspot.

Threatened chondrichthyan diversity is high in developing countries where scarce resources, limited data, and minimal stakeholder support often render conservation efforts challenging. As such, data on many species, including many evolutionarily distinct endemics, is poor in these countries and their conservation status and habitat needs remain uncertain. Here, we used baited remote underwater videos (BRUVs; n = 419) conducted at 167 sites over two years to assess the frequency of occurrence (FO), relative abundance, diversity, and structure of chondrichthyan assemblages in one of the world's chondrichthyan biodiversity and endemism hotspots, South Africa.