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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Discoveries
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1520573
This article is part of the Research Topic New Observations on the Behavior, Ecology, and Biology of Sharks and Rays View all 17 articles

New findings into the genetic population structure of two commercially valuable and threatened sharks, Mustelus mustelus (Linnaeus, 1758) and M. punctulatus (Risso, 1827), allow refining management strategy in the Central Mediterranean Sea

Provisionally accepted
Matteo Barbato Matteo Barbato 1,2,3*Sara Bonanomi Sara Bonanomi 3,4Diego Borme Diego Borme 5Iljia Cetkovic Iljia Cetkovic 6Francesco Colloca Francesco Colloca 7Manfredi Di Lorenzo Manfredi Di Lorenzo 3,7Ilaria Anna Maria Marino Ilaria Anna Maria Marino 1,3Carlotta Mazzoldi Carlotta Mazzoldi 1,2,3Ana Pesic Ana Pesic 6Antonello Sala Antonello Sala 4Lorenzo Zane Lorenzo Zane 1,2,3Massimo Mezzavilla Massimo Mezzavilla 1
  • 1 Department of Biology, School of Sciences, University of Padua, Padua, Veneto, Italy
  • 2 Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Scienze del Mare (CoNISMa), Rome, Lazio, Italy
  • 3 National Biodiversity Future Center, Palermo, Sicily, Italy
  • 4 Institute for Biological Resources and Marine Biotechnology, National Research Council (CNR), Messina, Italy
  • 5 National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (Italy), Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy
  • 6 Institute of Marine Biology, University of Montenegro, Kotor, Montenegro
  • 7 Department of Integrative Marine Ecology, Anton Dohrn Zoological Station Naples, Naples, Campania, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Elasmobranch species are the direct or accidental catch of fisheries and can have a commercial importance. In the Mediterranean Sea, a long-term period of overfishing brought several demersal elasmobranchs to be depleted and threatened by extinction, due to vulnerability related to their life history traits. In such exploited species, information on genetic diversity and connectivity is lacking and should be collected to identify management units. In this study, we focused on two threatened smooth-hound species, Mustelus Mustelus (Linnaeus, 1758) and M. punctulatus (Risso, 1827), whose abundance and distribution showed a decline at the Mediterranean regional level in the last century. Thanks to an opportunistic, yet extensive sampling, we obtained the largest sub-regional collection of specimens for genetic analysis so far. In total, 86 and 214 specimens of M. mustelus and M. punctulatus were collected between 2016 and 2020 in the Adriatic Sea and the Strait of Sicily. We assessed the population genetic structure typing 17 microsatellites and sequencing part of the mitochondrial control region in both species. We observed a substantial nuclear and mitochondrial genetic structure when accounting for the geographical sampling area for both species. Our results indicate the presence of at least two genetic stocks for each of the two species, one in the Strait of Sicily and the other in the Adriatic Sea. This study provides valuable data that should be integrated into a broader approach to define management units, improving the development of an effective management strategy for these threatened species in the Central Mediterranean Sea.

    Keywords: Triakidae, connectivity, elasmobranch, conservation, Management

    Received: 31 Oct 2024; Accepted: 13 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Barbato, Bonanomi, Borme, Cetkovic, Colloca, Di Lorenzo, Marino, Mazzoldi, Pesic, Sala, Zane and Mezzavilla. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Matteo Barbato, Department of Biology, School of Sciences, University of Padua, Padua, 35121, Veneto, Italy

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