Kwang-Ming Liu

• Ph. D., University of Michigan
• Professor (Full) at National Taiwan Ocean University

Age, growth, and reproduction of Alopias pelagicus are described based on 831 specimens (508 females and 323 males) collected from September 1993 to August 1995 in waters off northeastern Taiwan. Alopias pelagicus embryos are oophagous. Five developmental stages (two encapsulated and three posthatching) are recognized. The number of embryos per lit...

The vital parameter data for 62 stocks, covering 38 species, collected from the literature, including parameters of age, growth, and reproduction, were log-transformed and analyzed using multivariate analyses. Three groups were identified and empirical equations were developed for each to describe the relationships between the predicted finite rate...

Age and growth information is essential for stock assessment of fish, and growth model selection may influence the accuracy of stock assessment and subsequent fishery management decision making. Previous descriptions of the age and growth of elasmobranchs relied mainly on the von Bertalanffy growth model (VBGM). However, it has been noted that shar...

Simple Summary A new integrated ecological risk assessment (ERA) including the IUCN Red List category, the body weight variation trend of 1989–2011 with large sample size (n > 678,000), and the inflection point of population growth curve coupled with the ERA was developed to assess the impact of longline fishery on the pelagic sharks in the western...

Understanding the feeding ecology and habitat use of vulnerable shark species is crucial for effective conservation. This study focuses on two large filter-feeding sharks, the megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios) and whale shark (Rhincodon typus), in Northwestern Pacific waters. Stable isotope analysis (δ13C and δ15N) was conducted on white muscle...

The shark genus Etmopterus is the most species-rich shark genus, however, several of its species level taxa pose taxonomic challenges. Especially the Etmopterus lucifer species group is in need of a taxonomic re-evaluation. In the present study, we review the status of E. lucifer and E. molleri from the north- and southwestern Pacific applying an i...

A new species of the lanternshark genus Etmopterus Rafinesque, 1810 is described based on 23 specimens collected from the South China Sea. The new species, Etmopterus lii, being assigned to the E. lucifer group, differs from all other congeners, except E. sheikoi, by having a combination of the following morphological characters: dermal denticles f...

The northeastern waters of Guishan Island constitute one of the crucial fishing grounds for coastal trawl fishery in Taiwan and have been exploited for many decades. To construct the marine ecosystem and to examine the interactions among trophic levels of fisheries resources in the waters of Guishan Island, historical catch, catch composition, biol...

A new species of Malakichthys is described based on six specimens collected from deepwaters off southwestern Taiwan, northwestern Pacific Ocean. The new species, M. formosus sp. nov., exhibits distinct morphological characters, primarily characterized by the absence of chin spines, distinguishing it from other congeners with the exception of M. lev...

Mesopelagic fishes are rich in species diversity, yet most of the species are poorly known from taxonomic aspect. The present study provided detailed morphological descriptions on three mesopelagic fish species collected for the first time in Taiwanese waters, including Coccorella atrata (Alcock 1894), Centrobranchus andreae (Lütken 1892), and Dasy...

A Commentary on Evaluating stock status of 16 commercial fish species in the coastal and offshore waters of Taiwan using the CMSY and BSM methods

Cetacean and shark depredations in a small-scale longline fishery in the southeastern Taiwan waters were estimated based on interviews of 21 fishermen and logbooks of 12 sampling vessels, including 649 operations (681,310 hooks) from October 2009 to December 2010. Cetacean depredations were more serious than shark depredations, with damage rates of...

A new species of Okamejei is described based on two adult males collected from deep waters in the South China Sea. The new species, Okamejei picta sp. nov., is readily distinguished from most other congeners in having densely scattered black spots on dorsal disc. Okamejei hollandi and O. mengae is quite similar to the new species by their spot patt...

1. Substantial global population declines in pelagic sharks have led to the introduction of management and conservation measures, including gear restrictions and no-retention policies, to curb declines and encourage stock recovery. As the rate of discarding sharks increases, there is a growing need to understand prognostic factors that influence th...

The milk-eye catshark Apristurus nakayai Iglésias, 2012 was known from three specimens in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Six specimens were recently collected from the South China Sea. It belongs to the brunneus group, and superficially resembles A. platyrhynchus Tanaka, 1909. Apristurus nakayai differs from A. platyrhynchus by the following chara...

The longnose houndshark, Iago garricki Fourmanoir & Rivaton 1979, was described based on five specimens collected from Vanuatu. Five additional specimens were recently collected from the waters off Dongsha Atoll, South China Sea. A redescription of this species is provided based on the holotype, non-types collected near the type locality and off Do...

Simple Summary In this study, a semi-quantitative ecological risk assessment (ERA) was used to evaluate the ecological risks of fishing impact on 20 pelagic fish species by the small-scale longline fisheries in the western North Pacific Ocean. More than 2.38 million individual landing records at Nangfangao and Hsinkang fishing ports, eastern Taiwan...

The age and growth of the spot-tail shark, Carcharhinus sorrah, were estimated based on 327 specimens (171 females and 156 males) captured by the coastal/offshore longline or drift net fishery in the waters of the Taiwan Strait from October 2010 to December 2011 and July 2019 to August 2021. Sex-specific whole weight (W)—curved total length (TL) re...

The narrow-barred Spanish mackerel Scomberomorus commerson is an economically essential species; however, few studies have investigated its demographic structure in the northwestern Pacific, which includes Taiwan’s waters. This study examined the growth parameters, age composition, mortality, and sex ratio of S. commerson catches by examining sagit...

Simple Summary In this study, we integrate Megachasma pelagios records from the three oceans, refine previous results, add more individual data, solve the problem of uncertain body size estimations, and provide additional information on the horizontal and vertical distributions. A checklist of over 250 M. pelagios is integrated in this study based...

The life history (age and growth and reproduction) parameters of 35 species (41 stocks) of skates and rays were analyzed using multivariate analyses. Three groups were categorized by cluster analysis (CA) based on principal component scores. Empirical equation was developed for each group to describe the relationships between the predicted a finite...

Overfishing is the primary cause of marine defaunation, yet declines in and increasing extinction risks of individual species are difficult to measure, particularly for the largest predators found in the high seas. Here we calculate two well-established indicators to track progress towards Aichi Biodiversity Targets and Sustainable Development Goal...

Focusing on 27 rare filter-feeding megamouth sharks (Megachasma pelagios) captured as a by-catch of drift gillnet fishery in the Pacific Ocean to the east of Taiwan, this study analyzes the concentrations of 24 elements in their muscle, discusses the bioaccumulation of each element and the correlation between different elements, and assesses the po...

Full stock assessment of sharks is usually hindered by a lack of long time-series catch and effort data. In these circumstances, demographic and per-recruit analyses may provide alternate approaches to describe population status because these methods can be applied to estimate biological reference points (BRPs) for shark stocks. However, the approp...

The Humboldt Current, one of the most productive waters in the world, flows along the Chilean coast with high primary production level. However, living marine resources in these waters are declining due to overexploitation and other anthropogenic and environmental factors. It has been reported that deploying artificial reefs in coastal waters can i...

The reproductive characteristics of a commercially important sparid fish used in aquaculture systems, the yellowfin seabream Acanthopagrus latus, were described based on 938 specimens caught by various fisheries in the waters off western Taiwan from January 2016 to September 2017. Based on macroscopic appearances, gonadosomatic indices and histolog...

Stock enhancement is a method for replenishing depleted wild finfish populations by supplementing them with hatchery-raised fish. In Taiwan, silver sea bream (Rhabdosargus sarba) is a predominant commercial species involved in stock enhancement projects. Although management agencies conduct stock enhancement projects, there are a lot of private rel...

Age and growth of the Japanese butterfish Psenopsis anomala in the waters off north-eastern Taiwan–Erratum - Shyh-Bin Wang, Li-Yu Hung, Kwang-Ming Liu

The diet and feeding habits of the whitespotted bamboo shark (Chiloscyllium plagiosum) were described using stomach content analysis and stable isotope analysis based on 327 and 78 specimens, respectively, that were collected in northern Taiwanese waters from October 2013 to March 2015. The index of relative importance indicated that both females a...

The narrow-barred Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson) is an economically important fish species in Taiwan. Nevertheless, its reproductive biology in the region is poorly understood. This study provides the first information on the reproductive biology of this species in the central Taiwan Strait. In total, 1031 specimens were collected from...

The scalloped hammerhead shark Sphyrna lewini is a migratory shark species, highly valued commercially for its meat and fins. Although this species has been listed on the CITES Appendix II, its genetic structure in the West Pacific is still little known. In this study, shotgun sequencing technique was used to sequence millions of small fragmented D...

Age, growth and mortality of the goldlined seabream, Rhabdosargus sarba, were estimated based on 593 and 6516 specimens that were collected in waters off southwestern Taiwan from September 2015 to August 2016, and April 2015 to December 2017, respectively. The body weight (BW) and total length (TL) relationship (all data-pooled) was expressed as: B...

A Bayesian population modelling tool integrating separable virtual population analysis, per‐recruit models and age‐structured demographic analysis was developed for the bigeye thresher Alopias superciliosus (Lowe) population in an area subset of the western North Pacific. The mortality rates for years 1989–2016 were estimated, various biological re...

The Shortfin Mako Isurus oxyrinchus is one of the major shark bycatch species in the longline fishery for tuna Thunnus spp. in the Indian Ocean; however, its biological information is still little known. This study estimated the age and growth of Shortfin Makos in the southern Indian Ocean. In total, 178 specimens (72 females and 106 males) were op...

The age and growth of the blue shark Prionace glauca in the central South Pacific is described based on 267 specimens that were collected by scientific observers on board Taiwanese large-scale tuna longline fleets between May 2009 and May 2011. Growth band pairs (identified as translucent and opaque bands) were counted on images photographed from X...

The blue shark, Prionace glauca, is a pelagic shark occasionally captured as bycatch by pelagic longline fleets in the Indian Ocean. The data collected by fisheries observers on board the Taiwan large-scale longline fishing vessels from 2004 to 2016 were analyzed to describe the size, distribution and the relative abundance of the blue shark in the...

The megamouth shark ( Megachasma pelagios ) was described as a new species in 1983. Since then, only ca . 100 individuals have been observed or caught. Its horizontal migration, dispersal, and connectivity patterns are still unknown due to its rarity. Two genetic markers were used in this study to reveal its genetic diversity and connectivity patte...

Megamouth sharks recorded to date

Aligned sequences data of COI

Aligned sequences data of Loc6

The shortfin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus) is a large shark species that grows slowly, matures late, and generates few offspring. This species is vulnerable to overexploitation yet its population status is still poorly known. In this study, deterministic and stochastic stage-based models were constructed to assess the stock status of the shortfin...

The smooth hammerhead shark, Sphyrna zygaena, a top marine predator, is one of the species commonly caught by the Taiwanese offshore shark fisheries. However, its stock status information is still very limited and management measures is difficult to implement. To understand its population dynamics, the yield-per-recruit analysis (YPR) and the spawn...

Yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) is an economically important species for longline and trolling fisheries in the waters off the southwestern coast of Taiwan, yet this species' movement patterns remain poorly understood. This study provides the first information on the movement and behaviour of adult yellowfin tuna using pop-up satellite archival...

The blue shark (Prionace glauca) is the most frequently captured shark in pelagic oceanic fisheries, especially pelagic longlines targeting swordfish and/or tunas. As part of cooperative scientific efforts for fisheries and biological data collection, information from fishery observers, scientific projects and surveys, and from recreational fisheri...

The distribution pattern and the age and growth of Blue Sharks Prionace glauca were described based on 44,092 and 785 specimens, respectively, that were collected by scientific observers onboard Taiwanese longline fleets in the South Atlantic Ocean between December 2004 and December 2013. Size segregation was found, and the mean length of Blue Shar...

The age, growth and reproduction of the oceanic whitetip shark, Carcharhinus longimanus, in the western North Pacific Ocean were estimated based on 188 specimens (89 females and 99 males) collected before the prohibition of retaining on board for commercial use by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (from November 2002 to January 2...

Background The whale shark, Rhincodon typus , was utilized extensively in Taiwan before 1996. A quota management measure was put in place in 2002, and the whale shark fishery was completely banned in 2008. Biological studies including age and growth, and migration/ movement have been conducted. However, the feeding ecology of whale sharks in differ...

The Yellowfin Tuna Thunnus albacares is one of the major fish species caught around subsurface fish aggregation devices (FADs) in the waters southwest of Taiwan. However, how it interacts with other organisms around FADs is poorly known. In this study, the diet and feeding habits of juvenile Yellowfin Tuna were estimated from the analysis of stomac...

The bigeye thresher (Alopias supercilious) is occasionally caught as bycatch in pelagic longline fisheries targeting tunas and swordfish. Still, it is one of the least known and studied of all pelagic sharks, which hinders assessment of the status of its populations. As part of an ongoing cooperative program for fisheries and biological data colle...

The age and growth of Kwangtung skate, Dipturus kwangtungensis, in the waters off northern Taiwan were estimated from 422 specimens collected between July 2006 and July 2008 at the Tashi fishing market in north-eastern Taiwan. The sexes-combined relationship between total length (TL) and centrum diameter (D) was estimated as follows: TL = 14.11D0.8...

In this document, the blue shark catch and effort data from observers’ records of Taiwanese large longline fishing vessels operating in the Atlantic Ocean from 2004-2013 were analyzed. Based on the shark by-catch rate, five areas, namely, A (north of 20ºN), B (5ºN-20ºN), C (5ºN-15ºS), D (15ºS-50ºS, west to 20ºW) and E (15ºS-50ºS, 20ºW-20ºE), were c...

The age and growth of the dusky shark, Carcharhinus obscurus, in the western North Pacific Ocean was estimated based on 434 specimens (213 females and 256 males) collected between September 2002 and November 2003 at the Nanfanao fish market, in northeastern Taiwan. Sex-specific relationships between body weight (W) and total length (TL) were estima...

The Japanese butterfish, ＂Psenopsis anomala＂, is one of the most important fish species for trawl fisheries in Taiwan. This species has been intensively exploited in recent decades; however, how the species adapts to this impact by changing its life history traits is poorly known. In this study, we evaluated the change in the reproductive traits of...

The blue shark, Prionace glauca, is a pelagic species with a circum-global distribution in tropical to temperate waters. It is the top by-catch shark species for the Taiwanese large-scale tuna longline (LTLL) fishery. However, its population status in the North Pacific Ocean is still little known. In the present study, the blue shark catch and effo...

Most demographic models explicitly track the dynamics of a single sex. However, single-sex models may lead to rather poor results when vital rates and other demographic parameters differ between the sexes. Consequently, the population may not be optimally managed if management measures are based on a single-sex model, which suggests the need for tw...

This study estimated age and growth of the largest extant fish, the whale shark (Rhincodon typus) by counting vertebral band pairs from 92 specimens comprising 43 males (2.68–9.88m total length [TL]), 30 females (1.60–7.02m TL), and 19 unsexed individuals (2.83–6.67mTL) taken by Taiwanese commercial fisheries during 2001–06. Growth band pairs up to...

The bombay-duck, Harpadon microchir, is one of the im-portant bycatch species of the trawl fishery in the southwestern Taiwan. However, its biological information especially repro-ductive biology is still lacking. In this study, the reproductive biology of the bombay-duck was described based on 1,697 specimens (1,066 females and 631 males) caught b...

This study estimated age and growth of the largest extant fish, the whale shark (Rhincodon typus) by counting vertebral band pairs from 92 specimens comprising 43 males (2.68–9.88 m total length [TL]), 30 females (1.60–7.02 m TL), and 19 unsexed individuals (2.83–6.67 m TL) taken by Taiwanese commercial fisheries during 2001–06. Growth band pairs u...

Most demographic models are single sex, and assume both sexes have the same vital rates. However, many species, including the shortfin mako shark, are sexually dimorphic in vital rates, which suggests the need for two-sex models. In this study, a two-sex stage-structured matrix model was constructed to estimate shortfin mako shark demography and po...