Airam Guerra Marrero

Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria | ULPGC · Faculty of Marine Sciences

We report the first case of partial albinism in the Critically Endangered Angelshark, Squatina squatina. The encounter with this specimen took place while SCUBA diving on the beach of Tufia, located on the east coast of the island of Gran Canaria on April 2, 2021. This is also the first confirmed finding of an albino elasmobranch specimen in the Ca...

The presence of spiny butterfly rays, Gymnura altavela, in waters less than 20 m deep off the Canary Islands shows marked seasonality, with relatively high abundances in the summer and autumn. Large aggregations of sometimes hundreds of individuals, primarily females, appear in specific shallow areas of the archipelago and seem to be associated wit...

Percnon gibbesi is a native crab species characteristic of intertidal and subtidal zones of the Atlantic coast of the European Macaronesian archipelagos (Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands), and probably also in the neighbouring rocky coasts of northwest Africa. P. gibbesi is considered an invasive alien species in almost all of the Mediterranean,...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2022.1038064.].

This is the first study addressing validation of the early growth stages (including the first increment) in the beaks of juvenile cuttlefishes. The age validation in juveniles of Sepia officinalis was performed by comparison of the number of increments observed in the rostrum surface of lower jaws with their true age. A total of 159 individuals wer...

The use of cephalopod beaks in ecological and population dynamics studies has allowed major advances of our knowledge on the role of cephalopods in marine ecosystems in the last 60 years. Since the 1960’s, with the pioneering research by Malcolm Clarke and colleagues, cephalopod beaks (also named jaws or mandibles) have been described to species le...

Canary Islands, in particular Gran Canaria Island, show spiny butterfly ray aggregative behaviour in different beaches, and it seems to be related with the temperature variation.

Telemetry is a technique used to safeguard the misinformation about elasmobranchs, in this case acoustic tags are being used to find out the presence of spiny butterfly ray on the coast of Gran Canaria

The common cuttlefish Sepia officinalis is one of the most important species for cephalopod fisheries in many countries along the Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. Knowledge of the life cycle of the species is essential for understanding of its population structure and promoting sustainable management of the resource. Age and growth studi...

The African cuttlefish Sepia bertheloti is fished on the West African coast, often mixed with S. officinalis and/or S. hierredda. As in other marine fished species, the sustainable management of their populations begins with the understanding of the species life-cycle. Wild-caught samples of S. bertheloti from the same season and two different fish...

Introducción: El tiburón Angelote (Squatina squatina) también conocido como peje ángel en el archipiélago canario, es una especie de tiburón bentónico que se puede encontrar en toda la zona costera de las Islas Canarias. La especie está clasificada, por la Lista Roja de UICN, como en peligro crítico de extinción, debido principalmente a la sobrepes...

Introducción: La Mantelina, Gymnura altavela (Linnaeus, 1758), catalogada como vulnerable en el atlántico y en peligro crítico en el mediterráneo (Lista Roja de la UICN), ha sufrido y un agotamiento importante debido a la presión pesquera en los últimos 50 años, tanto por el sector profesional como por el sector de la pesca recreativo, debido a que...

Covid-19 pandemic has affected worldwide in many different ways. Fisheries around the world are not an exception due to the long term isolation and the non-activities period suffered. To do an evaluation of its impact on the fishing sectors in the Canary Islands, 87 online and phone questionnaires were carried out between July and September 2020, c...

Notoscopelus resplendens is an abundant myctophid in the region of the central‑eastern Atlantic. As with a majority of other myctophid species, this species performs vertical migration, playing a key role in the oceanic food web and in carbon sequestration. We examined the reproductive biology of N. resplendens based on 579 specimens caught between...

Autonomous sailboats are silent surface vehicles which are well suited for acoustic monitoring. The integration of an acoustic receiver in an unmanned surface vehicle has a large potential for population monitoring as it permits to report geo-referenced detections in real time, so that researchers can adapt monitoring strategies as data arrive. In...

Abralia veranyi and Abraliopsis morisii were the most abundant cephalopods caught during epipelagic and mesopelagic surveys off the Canary Islands and accounted for 26% and 35% of the cephalopod catch, respectively. Diel vertical migration patterns were observed in both species. At night, A. veranyi was recorded at depths as shallow as 38–90 m, whe...

The distribution of the Rough triggerfish, Canthidermis maculata, has been established in the East Atlantic for the west coast of subtropical central Africa, from Cape Verde Islands to Gabon, but with some records also toward Angola. The capture of a single specimen (TL: 289.6 mm) by tuna vessels in the Canary Islands, expand the distribution range...

Abstract Analysis of 322 cuttlebones of Sepia bertheloti caught in the waters of the Northwest Africa showed significant differences in growth between males and females. Morphometric analysis revealed a relatively different cuttlebone growth pattern between sexes, with males presenting faster growth in length to reach larger sizes and females displ...

Recreational fishing shows a growing number of followers, but at the same time it is a difficult fishery to assess, due to the lack of records of the activity and captures. In the present work it has been analysed the information collected from 118 spearfishing tournaments held in the Canary Islands between 2007 and 2017. The number of recreational...

In this study, we used a historical collection of photographs taken by recreational fishers from 1940 to 2014, at the island of Gran Canaria, to show both a significant decrease in the mean total length of Epinephelus marginatus and a concurrent change in the composition of captures. Before 1980, the mean total length of fish caught and photographe...

In this study, we used a historical collection of photographs taken by recreational fishers from 1940 to 2014, at the island of Gran Canaria, to show both a significant decrease in the mean total length of Epinephelus marginatus and a concurrent change in the composition of captures. Before 1980, the mean total length of fish caught and photographe...

La anómala presencia de bancos de ejemplares del tamboril oceánico (Lagocephalus lagocephalus) en Canarias parece haber estar motivada por un calentamiento anormal del agua de mar en el verano de 2017, asociados a fenómenos oceanográficos y climáticos (aumento de la temperatura por encima de 23ºC, disminución del viento, polvo sahariano). En genera...

The presence of Sthenoteuthis pteropus in the Canary waters (between 27º5N-20ºN and 13ºW-18º5W) is related to migratory aspects in the months of July and November, according with an increase in sea surface temperature. The range of sizes found in the study area is associated with a part of the life cycle of the squid, not finding small size or larg...

The Deep Scattering layer (DSL) around The Canary Islands (Central-east Atlantic) waters is of great ecological importance due to the abundance of mesopelagic species. During oceanographic surveys carried out by the O/V La Bocaina between 1997 and 2002, the DSL was assessed using acoustic and fishing techniques (pelagic trawls). The abundance regis...