Southwestward Expansion of the Pacific Sleeper Shark's (Somniosus pacificus) Known Distribution into the South China Sea

文献类型： 外文期刊

第一作者： Tian, Han

作者： Tian, Han;Xie, Wei;Gao, Zuyuan;Wang, Yuchao;Liu, Haozhen;Yin, Kedong;Tian, Han;Xie, Wei;Gao, Zuyuan;Wang, Yuchao;Liu, Haozhen;Yin, Kedong;Zhong, Junsheng;Chen, Jiangyuan;Jiang, Yane;Zhang, Jun;Wang, Sujing;Zhang, Fei;Yang, Jie

作者机构：

关键词： Somniosus pacificus; subgenus Somniosus; habitat expansion; deep-sea baited observations; South China Sea

期刊名称：ANIMALS （ 影响因子：2.7； 五年影响因子：3.0 ）

ISSN： 2076-2615

年卷期： 2024 年 14 卷 15 期

页码：

收录情况： SCI

摘要： We conducted an experiment of planting a dead cow and a metal-framed cage with cameras on the 1629 m deep sea floor off the southeast coast of Hainan Island in the northwestern South China Sea, using ROV diving and setting up a video camera on the cage to observe animals who came to eat the bait. The deep-sea cameras captured footage of eight Pacific sleeper sharks (Somniosus pacificus) swimming and feeding around the dead cow. To our knowledge, this is the first time the occurrence of such a shark species has been reported in the South China Sea. Eight individuals were differentiated based on the characteristic differences displayed in the images, with lengths of 1.9 to 5.1 m estimated. The video camera also recorded the predators' behavior of tearing at the dead cow on the seabed. It was discovered that Pacific sleeper sharks are not strictly solitary and exhibit queue-feeding behavior. This study is significant as it documents a record of a data-scarce shark species, for which little information is available in the literature. It also documents an expansion of the species' known habitat from the north Pacific Ocean into the South China Sea. Such sharks diving into the deep sea to predate on dead animals also suggests that occurrences of large chunks of dead organic bodies falling onto the deep sea might have been more frequent than we previously thought in the South China Sea. The findings have implications for understanding the geographic connectivity of large swimming animals between the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean and provide scientific evidence for formulating conservation and management strategies for sharks and other large animals in the oceans.

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