Elasmobranch - describes a group of fish without a hard bony skeleton, including sharks, skates, and rays.

The Darwin Elasmobranch Biodiversity Conservation and Management project in Sabah held a three-day international seminar that included a one-day workshop in order to highlight freshwater and coastal elasmobranch conservation issues in the region and worldwide, to disseminate the result of the project to other Malaysian states and countries, and to raise awareness of the importance of considering aspects of elasmobranch biodiversity in the context of nature conservation, commercial fisheries management, and for subsistence fishing communities. These proceedings contain numerous peer-reviewed papers originally presented at the seminar, which cover a wide range of topics, with particular reference to species from freshwater and estuarine habitats. The workshop served to develop recommendations concerning the future prospects of elasmobranch fisheries, biodiversity, conservation and management. This paper records those conclusions, which highlight the importance of elasmobranchs as top marine predators and keystone species, noting that permanent damage to shark and ray populations are likely to have serious and unexpected negative consequences for commercial and subsistence yields of other important fish stocks.

This volume offers a collection of papers on the quantitative assessment of age and growth in Chondrichthyan fishes. It details new hard parts for assessments of age, such as caudal thorns; new techniques like bomb radiocarbon for validation; and reexaminations of previous age and growth models. It also examines the importance of assessing the precision and accuracy of statistical formulas, analyses, and models used in age and growth studies.

Skates have become a concern in recent years due to the preponderance of these elasmobranchs that are caught as bycatch or as a directed fishery. This has raised concern because skates have life history characteristics that may make them vulnerable to over-exploitation. It was due to this concern that prompted Drs. David Ebert and James Sulikowski to organize an international symposium on the “Biology of Skates”. The aims and goals of the symposium were to bring together an international group of researchers to meet, discuss, perhaps develop collaborations, and present their most recent findings. The symposium was held over two days, on 13-14 July, 2006, in conjunction with the 22nd annual meeting of the American Elasmobranch Society in New Orleans, LA. A total of 31 authors from four countries contributed 16 papers that appear in this volume. The papers are broadly arranged into four separate categories: systematics and biogeography, diet and feeding ecology, reproductive biology, and age and growth. This is the first dedicated book on the biology of skates. We hope that readers will find this volume of interest and that it helps encourage and stimulate future research into these fascinating fishes.

Techniques and theory for processing otoliths from tropical marine fish have developed only recently due to an historic misconception that these organisms could not be aged. Otoliths are the most commonly used structures from which daily, seasonal or annual records of a fish’s environmental history are inferred, and are also used as indicators of migration patterns, home range, spatial distribution, stock structure and life history events. A large proportion of projects undertaken on tropical marine organisms involve removal and processing of calcified structures such as otoliths, statoliths or vertebrae to retrieve biological, biochemical or genetic information. Current techniques and principles have evolved rapidly and are under constant modification and these differ among laboratories, and more particularly among species and within life history stages. Tropical fish otoliths: Information for assessment, management and ecology is a comprehensive description of the current status of knowledge about otoliths in the tropics. This book has contributions from leading experts in the field, encompassing a tropical perspective on daily and annual ageing in fish and invertebrates, microchemistry, interpreting otolith microstructure and using it to back-calculate life history events, and includes a treatise on the significance of validating periodicity in otoliths.

This timely book brings readers up to date on the wide range of advances made in fisheries science since the publication in 1957 of On the Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations (Beverton and Holt), regarded by many fisheries scientists as one of the most important books on fisheries yet published. Traditional fishery subjects covered include historic declines and changes in fishing fleets, fisheries management and stock assessments, data-poor situations, simulation and modelling of fished stocks, fisheries economics, assessing reproductive potential and dispersal of larvae, fisheries for sharks and rays, and use of marine technology. Additionally, related subjects of increasing importance now that ecological approaches to management are coming to the fore are presented. They include benthic ecology, ecosystem changes linked to fishing, life history theory, the effects of chemicals on fish reproduction, and use of sounds in the sea by marine life. Several chapters offer stimulating philosophical discussion of the many controversial areas still existing. This significant book, edited by Andy Payne, John Cotter and Ted Potter and containing contributions by world-renowned fisheries scientists, including many based at Cefas (where Beverton and Holt's original work was carried out) is an essential purchase for fisheries managers and scientists, fish biologists, marine scientists and ecologists. Libraries in all universities and research establishments where fisheries and biological sciences are studied and taught are likely to need copies of this landmark publication.

This important and exciting title represents the first authoritative volume focussed on pelagic (open ocean) sharks as a group. Virtually every pelagic shark expert in the world has contributed to this landmark publication which includes the latest data and knowledge on pelagic shark biology, fisheries, management, and conservation. Pelagic sharks face unprecedented levels of exploitation in all the world's oceans through both direct fisheries and by-catch, and effective management for these species is contingent upon solid science and data, which this book brings together for the first time. All those involved in shark biology will need to have a copy of this book.