Edward James Brooks

The Manda Projects

There is much interest in being able to quantify the swimming speeds and metabolic rates of wild aquatic animals such as sharks to develop bioenergetics models and evaluate the metabolic consequences of different stressors. This study sought to calibrate tri-axial acceleration biologgers (accelerometers) such that it would be possible to estimate s...

1. Determining how animals move within their environment is a fundamental knowledge that contributes to effective management and conservation. Continuous ‘round‐the‐clock’ animal movement data are frequently gathered using biotelemetry technology, providing discrete data packages on the presence–absence of animals at known locations through time. C...

Acquiring movement data for small-bodied, deep-water chondrichthyans is challenged by extreme effects of capture and handling stress, and post-release predation, however, it is urgently required to examine important fisheries interactions and assess the ecological role of these species within deep-water food webs. Here we suggest a novel release-ca...

Deep-sea chondrichthyans, like many deep-water fishes, are very poorly understood at the most fundamental biological, ecological and taxonomic levels. Our study represents the first ecological investigation of deep-water elasmobranch assemblages in The Bahamas, and the first assessment of species-specific resilience to capture for all of the specie...

The Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus pere-zi), an abundant coral-reef-associated apex predator, is one of the most economically and ecologically important, yet least studied species of large shark in the greater Caribbean region. The relative abundance and population structure of C. perezi off Cape Eleuthera, The Bahamas, was surveyed by standard...

Many shark populations are in decline around the world, with severe ecological and economic consequences. Fisheries management and marine protected areas (MPAs) have both been heralded as solutions. However, the effectiveness of MPAs alone is questionable, particularly for globally threatened sharks and rays (‘elasmobranchs’), with little known abo...

Fisheries-independent data on the diversity, relative abundance, and demographic structure of poorly studied, threatened oceanic sharks are absent from much of the western North Atlantic Ocean, where multiple oceanic shark species have experienced significant population declines. Resource-limited management approaches require the identification of...

Booralana nickorum sp. nov. is described from the deep-water slope of the Exuma Sound, The Bahamas, from depths of 540 to 560 metres. It is the fourth species to be assigned to the genus and the second species described from the Western North Atlantic. The species can be distinguished from Booralana tricarinata Camp and Heard, 1988 and the other sp...

A global survey of coral reefs reveals that overfishing is driving resident shark species toward extinction, causing diversity deficits in reef elasmobranch (shark and ray) assemblages. Our species level analysis revealed global declines of 60 to 73% for five common resident reef shark species and that individual shark species were not detected at...

Understanding the factors shaping patterns of ecological resilience is critical for mitigating the loss of global biodiversity. Throughout aquatic environments, highly mobile predators are thought to serve as important vectors of energy between ecosystems thereby promoting stability and resilience. However, the role these predators play in connecti...

Oceanic whitetip sharks Carcharhinus longimanus aggregate at Columbus Point, Cat Island, The Bahamas, in at least April and May. We show that signs of putative mating activity (i.e. bite wounds) on mature females, which dominate the aggregation, are exceedingly rare at that time, but may be more common in July. Male plasma testosterone concentratio...

Diel activity patterns and fine-scale behavior of large pelagic fishes have been poorly studied relative to their coastal counterparts. In particular, little is known about how predator activity varies with time of day and vertical habitat. Measuring changes in activity can be challenging as these animals swim continuously so traditional metrics su...

Knowledge of the three-dimensional movement patterns of elasmobranchs is vital to understand their ecological roles and exposure to anthropogenic pressures. To date, comparative studies among species at global scales have mostly focused on horizontal movements. Our study addresses the knowledge gap of vertical movements by compiling the first globa...

Animal behavior varies in response to capture between/within species and fisheries, and its expression may contribute to incidental mortality when behaviors result in physiological ramifications that cannot be resolved. However, this relationship between capture behavior and animal health is poorly understood, and it remains a logistical challenge...

The Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi) is an economically important species in The Bahamas, where it is protected from fishing and is a mainstay for the shark dive tourism industry. Significant declines in abundance are suspected throughout much of its range, making the study of its life history and spatial ecology important for effective f...

Identifying the geographical scale at which natural populations structure themselves is essential for conservation. One way to gauge this structure is by estimating local effective population size (Ne) and the associated measure of effective number of breeders (Nb), as the smaller and more isolated natural populations are, the smaller Ne and Nb the...

106,107 ✉ replying to A. V. Harry & J. M. Braccini Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03463-w (2021) Our global analysis 1 estimated the overlap and fishing exposure risk (FEI) using the space use of satellite-tracked sharks and longline fishing effort monitored by the automatic identification system (AIS). In the accompanying Comment, Harry...

This article is a response to Murua et al.'s Matters Arising article in Nature, "Shark mortality cannot be assessed by fishery overlap alone," which arose from arising from N. Queiroz et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1444-4 (2019).

Shark populations have declined across the Caribbean region, with negative associations between shark abundance and human population density, open access to fishing, and proximity to large markets (‘market gravity’). This decline is frequently attributed to fishing mortality, which increases in areas closer to humans and outside marine reserves. Al...

Fish aggregation devices (FADs) are used worldwide to enhance the efficiency of various fisheries. Devices usually consist of a floating or subsurface component designed to exploit natural fish behavior, using species attraction to structure (e.g. Sargassum spp.) to aggregate fish and increase capture success in open ocean environments. Concerns ha...

Baited Remote Underwater Video Stations (BRUVS) are widely used for monitoring relative abundances of fishes, especially sharks, but only the maximum number of individuals seen at any one time (MaxN) is usually recorded. In both the Cayman Islands and the Amirante Islands, Seychelles, we used photo-ID to recognise individual sharks recorded on BRUV...

Fishes are often caught as bycatch on longlines and subsequently discarded. The behavioural response of fishes to longline capture is poorly understood, although it may be linked to the magnitude of the physiological stress response, and, ultimately, contribute to stress-induced mortality. We used accelerometers, video cameras, and hook timers to a...

An Amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Decades of overexploitation have devastated shark populations, leaving considerable doubt as to their ecological status1,2. Yet much of what is known about sharks has been inferred from catch records in industrial fisheries, whereas far less information is available about sharks that live in coastal habitats³. Here we address this knowledge gap usi...

The oceanic whitetip shark Carcharhinus longimanus is a widely distributed large pelagic shark species once considered abundant in tropical and warm temperate waters, but recently listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN due to drastic population declines associated with overfishing. In addition to risks posed to its populations due to overexplo...

Long-term trends in shark abundance offer important insights for fisheries management. Few fisheries-independent, extended time-series data exist for coastal shark species in the northwest Atlantic Ocean or Caribbean outside of the United States. A decades old dataset comprised of standardized longline surveys provided us with the opportunity to ch...

The purpose of this study was to test the effects of high CO2 exposure on wound healing rates in an elasmobranch fish (Urobatis jamaicensis). Small dermal injuries (8 mm biopsy) closed by 22 days post wounding with a decrease in haematocrit. High CO2 exposure (ΔpH = 1.4) did not influence healing rate or haematocrit. Combined, these data provide ev...

Effective ocean management and the conservation of highly migratory species depend on resolving the overlap between animal movements and distributions, and fishing effort. However, this information is lacking at a global scale. Here we show, using a big-data approach that combines satellite-tracked movements of pelagic sharks and global fishing fle...

The use of bio-logging devices is important for describing behaviour, energy expenditure and activity budgets of cryptic marine organisms. In stingrays, the physical deployment of bio-logging devices is challenging due to their lack of raised structures or hard tissue for attachment. Previous studies have used a range of attachment techniques on va...

Fishes are used in a wide range of scientific studies, from conservation research with potential benefits to the species used to biomedical research with potential human benefits. Fish research can take place in both laboratories and field environments and methods used represent a continuum from non‐invasive observations, handling, through to exper...

Some shark populations face declines owing to targeted capture and by-catch in longline fisheries. Exercise intensity during longline capture and physiological status may be associated, which could inform management strategies aimed at reducing the impacts of longline capture on sharks. The purpose of this study was to characterize relationships be...

Identifying prey resource pools supporting fish biomass can elucidate trophic pathways of pollutant bioaccumulation. We used multiple chemical tracers (carbon [δ13C] and nitrogen [δ15N] stable isotopes and total mercury [THg]) to identify trophic pathways and measure contaminant loading in upper trophic level fishes residing at a reef and open-ocea...

Birds, mammals, and certain fishes, including tunas, opahs and lamnid sharks, are endothermic, conserving internally generated, metabolic heat to maintain body or tissue temperatures above that of the environment. Bluefin tunas are commercially important fishes worldwide and some populations are threatened. They are renowned for their endothermy, m...

Knowledge of the spatial ecology and movement of animals contributes to our understanding of intra- and inter-specific interactions and ecosystem dynamics, and can inform conservation actions. Here we assessed the space use and activity levels of a marine predator, the Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi), in coastal regions of Eleuthera, The...

The harvest of marine resources has long‐standing cultural and economic importance to The Bahamas and other small island developing states. Tourists and residents place a demand on local marine resources, particularly Caribbean spiny lobster, Panulirus argus (Latreille), queen conch, Lobatus gigas (Linnaeus) and Nassau grouper, Epinephelus striatus...

Large-bodied pelagic ectotherms such as sharks need to maintain internal temperatures within a favourable range in order to maximise performance and be cost-efficient foragers. This implies that behavioural thermoregulation should be a key feature of the movements of these animals, although field evidence is limited. We used depth and temperature a...

Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes (δ13C and δ15N) were used to examine trophic niche dynamics of three co-occurring predators in The Bahamas. Variable estimates of core trophic niche width and total trophic niche overlap were observed between nurse sharks (Ginglymostoma cirratum), southern stingrays (Hypanus americanus), and Atlantic chupare stin...

Knowing how often animals engage in different behaviors and their energetic costs may explain why animals behave the way they do in the wild. This study sought to investigate the relationship between the frequency of various swimming behaviors and their associated energetic costs (oxygen consumption rates) in situ for juvenile lemon sharks (Negapri...

Sharks are a diverse group of mobile predators that forage across varied spatial scales and have the potential to influence food web dynamics. The ecological consequences of recent declines in shark biomass may extend across broader geographic ranges if shark taxa display common behavioural traits. By tracking the original site of photosynthetic fi...

Animal behavior should optimize the difference between the energy they gain from prey and the energy they spend searching for prey. This is all the more critical for predators occupying the pelagic environment, as prey is sparse and patchily distributed. We theoretically derive two canonical swimming strategies for pelagic predators, that maximize...

Bycatch interactions with deep-sea elasmobranchs are increasingly common and can lead to dramatic declines in abundance over short time scales. Sharks hooked in the deep sea could face a higher likelihood of severe physiological disturbance, at-vessel mortality, and postrelease mortality (PRM) than their shallower counterparts. Unfortunately, robus...

Stomach contents were collected from 117 yellow rays Urobatis jamaicensis from three locations in south Eleuthera, The Bahamas and compared with ambient infauna via sediment surveys. Diets were relatively limited with a total of 535 prey items recovered, representing five taxonomic groups and dominated by polychaetes and decapod crustaceans (87% of...

Deep-sea chondrichthyans are cryptic species subject to increasing anthropogenic exploitation. Defining their role in deep-water ecosystems is therefore crucial for predicting the ecosystem-wide effects of their removal. Stable isotope analyses (SIA) of carbon and nitrogen have been increasingly used in chondrichthyan studies as a non-lethal method...

Stable isotope analysis (SIA) of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) is a common tool used to examine aspects of elasmobranch biology and ecology; however, accurate ecological interpretation of stable isotope values require knowledge of lipid and urea dynamics, and the variable turnover rates of different tissue types. Here we examined lipid and urea...

Aim The Caribbean reef shark ( Carcharhinus perezi ) is one of few extant reef sharks inhabiting the Atlantic Ocean. Its variability in movements across habitat types suggests the possibility of a complex genetic population structure. Here, we use mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to investigate the genetic connectivity of the Caribbean reef shark acro...

Non-intrusive and non-destructive acquisition of length measurements for marine megafauna is increasingly valuable given growing threats to many species’ long-term survival. Stereo-videography provides a means of obtaining length data with minimal impact on the organism and minimal observer bias. However, for many researchers there are still signif...

Lipids affect stable isotope values generated for marine fishes, however these effects remain poorly described for many extant shark taxa, especially deep-sea species. Here, we report the effects of lipid extraction (LE) on δ13C, δ15N, and C:N values of seven deep-sea sharks, generate novel mathematical normalizations for δ13C based on the relation...

Styracura (= Himantura) schmardae (Caribbean Whiptail Stingray) is a cryptic batoid found throughout the Caribbean, yet is poorly known from The Bahamas. Anecdotal records suggest this animal may have been distributed throughout the Exuma Cays in the Central Bahamas, but information pertaining to its distribution within The Bahamas is sparse, and t...

Elasmobranch populations in The Bahamas offer a unique juxtaposition to the widespread decline of many species around the world, largely due to management and conservation initiatives implemented over the last 25 years. Several industries have been built around the diverse and abundant elasmobranch assemblages found in The Bahamas, however a compre...

Quantifying changes in blood chemistry in elasmobranchs can provide insights into the physiological insults caused by anthropogenic stress, and can ultimately inform conservation and management strategies. Current methods for analysing elasmobranch blood chemistry in the field are often costly and logistically challenging. We compared blood pH valu...

Despite the ecological and economic importance of the Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi), little data exist regarding the movements and habitat use of this predator across its range. We deployed 11 pop-up satellite archival tags on Caribbean reef sharks captured in the northeast Exuma Sound, The Bahamas, to assess their horizontal and verti...

Deep-sea communities are subject to a growing number of extrinsic pressures, which threatens their structure and function. Here we use carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes to provide new insights into the community structure of a data-poor deep-sea island slope system, the Exuma Sound, The Bahamas. A total of 78 individuals from 16 species were capt...

Biologging and tracking instruments provide valuable, remote surveillance on otherwise unobservable marine animals. Instruments can be consumed (ingested) by predators while collecting data, and if not identified, the retrieved dataset could be assigned to the incorrect individual and/or species. Consumption events of instruments, such as pop-up sa...

This study sought to observe the effects of submerged weight and frontal cross-sectional area of external telemetry packages on the kinematics, activity levels and swimming performance of small-bodied juvenile sharks, using lemon sharks Negaprion brevirostris (60-80 cm total length, LT ) as a model species. Juveniles were observed free-swimming in...

Background All vertebrates initially feed their offspring using yolk reserves. In some live-bearing species these yolk reserves may be supplemented with extra nutrition via a placenta. Sharks belonging to the Carcharhinidae family are all live-bearing, and with the exception of the tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier), develop placental connections afte...

Of all marine mammals, the beaked whales are one group for which very little data has been collected, largely due to their elusive foraging strategies associated with extended deep-dives. Mesoplodon europaeus (Gervais’ Beaked Whale) are found throughout the northern Atlantic; however, they are only known in The Bahamas through an extremely limited...

A new species of cirolanid isopod, Bathynomus maxeyorum sp. nov., from The Bahamas, Western Atlantic, is described. This species represents the fourth species of Bathynomus to be described from the tropical and subtropical Western Atlantic. Bathynomus maxeyorum sp. nov. is characterized by 7 broad short pleotelsonic spines, with setation running al...

Comprehension of ecological processes in marine animals requires information regarding dynamic vertical habitat use. While many pelagic predators primarily associate with epipelagic waters, some species routinely dive beyond the deep scattering layer. Actuation for exploiting these aphotic habitats remains largely unknown. Recent telemetry data fro...

Table S1. Summary of biological and X‐Tag information from 16 tagged sharks. Data S1. Sampling rate analysis. Figure S1. Six‐hour data subsample from accelerometer depth data logger. Data S2. Data treatment. Data S3. Generalized linear mixed model details. Table S2. Summary of negative binomial models. Table S3. Summary of linear mixed models...