Oliver N. Shipley

Stony Brook University | Stony Brook · School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences

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...

The development of the isotopic niche, an n-dimensional hypervolume (with n being the number of isotopes) occupied by a population in delta-space, has revolutionized the study of animal interactions in wild populations. While the isotopic niche offers a useful means to understand interactions at many ecological resolutions (e.g., individual, popula...

1.Throughout their life history, many animals transition among heterogenous environments to facilitate behaviors such as reproduction, foraging, and predator avoidance. The dynamic environmental and biological conditions experienced by mobile species are integrated in the chemical composition of their tissues, providing retrospective insight into m...

Blue sharks (Prionace glauca) are globally distributed, large-bodied pelagic sharks that make extensive migrations throughout their range. In the North Pacific, mark-recapture studies have shown trans-Pacific migrations, but knowledge gaps in migration frequency hinder understanding of regional connectivity and assessments of regional demography fo...

1. The isotopic composition of tooth-bound collagen has long been used to reconstruct dietary patterns of animals in extant and paleoecological systems. For sharks that replace teeth rapidly in a conveyor-like system, stable isotopes of tooth collagen (δ13Ctooth & δ15Ntooth) are poorly understood and lacking in ecological context relative to other...

The abundances of migratory sharks observed throughout the Mid‐Atlantic Bight (MAB) during productive summer months suggests that this region provides critical habitat and prey resources to this taxon. However, the principal prey assemblages sustaining migratory shark biomass in this region is poorly defined. We applied high‐throughput DNA metabarc...

Recent spikes in interactions between humans and sharks in the New York Bight have sparked widespread reporting of possible causalities, many of which lack empirical support. Here we comment on the current state of knowledge regarding shark biology and management in New York waters emphasizing that the possible drivers of increased human‐shark inte...

1. Robustly quantifying dietary resource use and trophic position using stable isotopes requires accurate trophic discrimination factors (TDF; Δ13C and Δ15N for carbon and nitrogen, respectively), defined as the isotopic difference between consumer and diet. Early TDF studies converged on values of around 1.0‰ for Δ13C and 3.4‰ for Δ15N, but more r...

1. Identifying potential links between food web structure and animal body condition is fundamental for predicting the long-term persistence of populations under rapidly changing environments. Northern lakes, and the cold water adapted species that inhabit them, are particularly vulnerable to a warming climate. 2. We explored relationships among b...

Income and capital breeding represent opposing ends of a continuum of reproductive strategies. Quantifying nutrient allocation to reproduction is challenging, but recent advances in compound‐specific stable isotope analysis hold promise for tracing the source of individual compounds allocated to reproduction. Here, we describe a novel approach of u...

The genus Etmopterus is the most speciose group of small bodied deep-sea sharks found throughout the tropical and subtropical Western Atlantic. Despite exhibiting a global distribution at the genus-level, the blurred lantern shark (Etempoterus bigelowi) is known only from a few records in the Western and Southern Atlantic Ocean. Through in-situ vid...

Top predators play key roles within their respective ecosystems. However, their ability to adjust their behaviors in response to changes in environmental conditions and food web structure, which is important in light of climate change and continued anthropogenic disturbance, is still unclear in many ecosystems. We combined stomach content and stabl...

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...

The management of migratory taxa relies on the knowledge of their movements. Among them, ontogenetic habitat shift, from nurseries to adult habitats, is a behavioural trait shared across marine taxa allowing resource partitioning between life stages and reducing predation risk. As this movement is consistent over time, characterizing its timing is...

Elasmobranch fishes (sharks, skates and rays) are some of the most morphologically and behaviourally diverse vertebrate species on the planet, demonstrating a wide repertoire of feeding strategies. The nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) is a large, widely distributed shark species which is commonly observed on tropical reefs worldwide; yet it rem...

Seagrass conservation is critical for mitigating climate change due to the large stocks of carbon they sequester in the seafloor. However, effective conservation and its potential to provide nature-based solutions to climate change is hindered by major uncertainties regarding seagrass extent and distribution. Here, we describe the characterization...

Hypomelanosis refers to a suite of skin pigment abnormalities, including albinism, leucism, and piebaldism. While documented across many vertebrate species, examples of hypomelanosis are rarely seen in chondrichthyans, with little insight into the potential effects on survival. Here, we report the first observation of abnormal skin pigmentation ind...

Understanding how intraspecific variation in the use of prey resources impacts energy metabolism has strong implications for predicting long-term fitness such as reproductive success and survival and is critical for predicting population-to-community level responses to environmental change. Here we examine the energetic consequences of variable pre...

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...

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...

Rivers can transport a substantial amount of allochthonous nutrients into coastal marine ecosystems. These nutrients are a significant contributor to estuarine productivity, resulting in increased fishery production. However, for migratory marine predators, the importance of nutrients from fluvial-dominated estuaries is unclear. We used carbon (δ ¹...

Nitrogen isotope (δ15N) analysis of bulk tissues and individual amino acids (AA) can be used to assess how consumers maintain nitrogen balance with broad implications for predicting individual fitness. For elasmobranchs, a ureotelic taxa thought to be constantly nitrogen limited, the isotopic effects associated with nitrogen-demanding events such a...

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...

We determined concentrations of Hg, Pb, Cd, Cr, As, Ni, Ag, Se, Cu, and Zn in muscle tissue of six commonly consumed Long Island fish species (black seabass, bluefish, striped bass, summer flounder, tautog, and weakfish, total sample size = 1211) caught off Long Island, New York in 2018 and 2019. Long-term consumption of these coastal fish could po...

1. Animal movement and resource use are essential considerations for effective environmental management, but they are challenging to quantify in expansive natural ecosystems such as oceans. 2. We used a novel combination of fish tracking with expansive acoustic telemetry networks, stable isotope analysis, and integrated modeling techniques to char...

The Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi; Poey, 1876) is a medium to large-bodied coastal and reef-associated predator found throughout the subtropical and tropical waters of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, although its populations are increasingly threatened by overfishing. We describe the first mitochondrial genome sequence for this sp...

Nitrogen stable isotopes (δ15N) are typically used to estimate an organism’s trophic position, providing insight into its ecological role and broader food web structure. Ecological inferences drawn from these estimates rely on quantification of isotopic baselines, i.e., low trophic level organisms reflecting the predominant nitrogen sources that su...

Tetronarce occidentalis (Western Atlantic Torpedo) is a demersal to semi-pelagic batoid, distributed broadly from Nova Scotia to Venezuela, for which data is limited throughout its range. A single individual was captured in the New York Bight and opportunistically tracked through nearshore waters for 2 years using passive acoustic telemetry. The in...

The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from 89 different studies. Hundr...

The isotopic composition of tooth‐bound collagen has long been used to reconstruct dietary patterns of animals in extant and palaeoecological systems. For sharks that replace teeth rapidly in a conveyor‐like system, stable isotopes of tooth collagen (δ ¹³ C Teeth & δ ¹⁵ N Teeth ) are poorly understood and lacking in ecological context relative to o...

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...

As concerns about anthropogenic and natural disturbance grow, the understanding of animal resource use patterns has been increasingly prioritized to predict how changes in environmental conditions, food web structure, and population dynamics will affect biological resilience. Among the tools used to assess resource use, stable isotope analysis has...

The notion that closely related species resemble each other in ecological niche space (i.e., phylogenetic dependence) has been a longstanding, contentious paradigm in evolutionary biology, the incidence of which is important for predicting the ecosystem-level effects of species loss. Despite being examined across a multitude of terrestrial taxa, ma...

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have emerged as potentially important conservation tools for the conservation of biodiversity and mitigation of climate impacts. Among MPAs, a large percentage has been created with the implicit goal of protecting shark populations, including 17 shark sanctuaries which fully protect sharks throughout their jurisdiction...

Large-scale migrations present challenges to management of exploited or at-risk marine species. Our understanding of predator movements has greatly improved, but data are often inadequate to understand patterns on population scales. The chemical composition of predator tissues, most often stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen (δ‎ ¹³ C and δ‎...

Over the last century anthropogenic activities have rapidly increased the influx of metals and metalloids entering the marine environment, which can bioaccumulate and biomagnify in marine top consumers. This may elicit sublethal effects on target organisms and have broad implications for human seafood consumers. We provide the first assessment of m...

Golden and Blueline Tilefish (Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps and Caulolatilus microps) are keystone taxa in northwest (NW) Atlantic continental shelf-edge environments due to their biotic (trophic-mediated) and abiotic (ecosystem engineering) functional roles combined with high-value fisheries. Despite this importance, the ecological niche dynamics...

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...

Calculation of dietary niche characteristics using stable isotopes has become a popular approach to understand the functional role of taxa across food webs. An underlying assumption of this approach is that stable isotopes accurately reflect the dietary breadth of a species over a temporal duration defined by tissue-specific isotopic turnover rates...

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...

Recent studies on shark assemblages on the northeast Florida and southeast Georgia coast (hereafter referred to collectively as the “First Coast”) have demonstrated differences in species and age‐class composition of catch from previously‐characterized estuaries and newly‐surveyed area beaches, demonstrating that these regions may provide critical...

Observations of resource use dynamics are sparse for higher trophic level species in marine systems, but important given their role in driving the distribution and functional roles of species. For a guild comprised of seven large-bodied shark species captured in Florida Bay, we use multi-tissue stable isotope analysis to evaluate the extent of reso...

The overexploitation and decline of groundfish populations throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s resulted in a regime shift on George’s Bank - Southern New England, which was characterized by subsequent exponential increases in the observed biomass of Winter Skate, Leucoraja ocellata in the region. Recent work suggested that the rate of the Winter Skate...

We evaluated whether existing assumptions regarding the trophic ecology of a poorly-studied predator guild, northwest (NW) Atlantic skates (family: Rajidae), were supported across broad geographic scales. Four hypotheses were tested using carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope values as metrics of foraging behavior: 1) species exhibit ont...

We used stable isotope analysis to examine ontogenetic patterns in the resource use dynamics of bonefish (Albula vulpes) collected from two locations (Banks and Atlantic) within the coastal waters of Eleuthera, The Bahamas. A marked shift in δ13C signatures between leptocephali and juveniles reflected a rapid change in resource use, likely from pel...

Using a baited remote underwater video system (BRUV), we provide the first recorded in situ observation of the sharpnose sevengill shark, Heptranchias perlo (Bonnaterre, 1788), from the Tongue of the Ocean, Bahamas. The individual was recorded at a depth of 718 meters, allowing for visual analysis of behavior in its natural environment. Temperature...

Skates (class Chondrichthyes; subclass Elasmobranchii; order Rajiformes; family Rajidae) comprise one quarter of extant chondrichthyans, yet have received little attention in the scientific literature likely due to their relatively low economic value and difficulties in species identification. The absence of species-specific information on catch, l...

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...

Pelagic fisheries extend across all basins of the world's oceans, exploiting a range of species from forage fish to apex predators. This article begins with a review of the common large pelagic species targeted by open ocean fisheries including tuna, billfish, and sharks. The common fishing gears used by commercial and recreational pelagic fisherie...

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 widespread collapse of many coastal fish stocks, coupled with the technological advancement of fishing gears drove commercial fisheries into deeper waters, beginning in the 1960s. Despite supporting many lucrative fisheries for a number of decades, the fragility of target species combined with unregulated levels of exploitation, has seen dramat...

Across the global ocean, migratory fish display a variety of behaviors in the horizontal plane. The diversity of these behaviors has historically been categorized into groups based on areas of prominent residence, spawning, rearing, and feeding. This article reviews the four common migratory behaviors and fish which exemplify them: anadromy, catadr...

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...

Evaluating tissue fractionation between mothers and their offspring is fundamental for informing our interpretation of stable isotope values in young individuals and can provide insights into the dynamics of maternal provisioning. The objectives of this study were to investigate the isotopic relationships between maternal reproductive (i.e., yolk,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...