Zoya Tyabji

Dalhousie University | Dal · Department of Biology

Detailed information on shark and ray fisheries in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India are limited, including information on the diversity and biological characteristics of these species. We carried out fish landing surveys in South Andamans from January 2017 to May 2018, a comprehensive and cost-effective way to fill this data gap. We sampled 5...

Overfishing is recognized as the most pervasive threat to sharks and rays globally. While there is increasing emphasis on ecological aspects of shark and ray fisheries, socio-economic considerations are often poorly incorporated into management policies. Here, we assess the utilization and trade of sharks and rays across the Andaman Islands by cond...

Overfishing, as well as habitat loss and degradation, has led to major population declines and local extinctions of sawfishes (Pristidae) globally. Four sawfish species reportedly occur in India; however, records have been limited to opportunistic commercial catch and landing reports. Here, we provide the first comprehensive review of published and...

The versatility of the shark body form is suggested to be one of the key factors underlying their evolutionary success and persistence. Nevertheless, sharks exhibit a huge diversity of body forms and morphological adaptations. More subtly, it is increasingly evident that in many species, morphology varies through ontogeny. Multiple competing hypoth...

Historically India has been projected as one of the major elasmobranch fishing nations in the world. However, management and conservation efforts are not commensurate with this trend. Along with the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, several generic conservation measures are in place at the regional/local level. But India is still a long way from mee...

The scientific literature on the diversity and biological characteristics of sharks and rays from the Andaman and Nicobar Archipelago fishing grounds is scarce and compromised by species misidentifications. We carried out systematic fish landing surveys in South Andamans from January 2017 to May 2018, a comprehensive and cost-effective way to fill...

Documenting phenologic events is crucial in obtaining deeper insights into the life cycle of seagrasses. We documented and compared the flowering and fruiting of the seagrass Enhalus acoroides from multispecies seagrass meadows at two sites, Henry Lawrence and Tarmugli islands located inside the marine national parks in South Andaman Islands. At th...

Sea kraits forage in water and return to land to digest their prey, mate, slough, and lay their eggs. The temporal terrestrial patterns in encounter rate and behaviour of two species of sea kraits Laticauda colubrina and L. laticaudata were studied over four years at the New Wandoor beach in the southern Andaman Islands. The encounter rate of L. co...

The diversity of sharks occurring off the Andaman and Nicobar Archipelago in India has received increased attention in recent years. Yet, available checklists are out of date, often with inaccurate information and a number of commercially important species have not been documented through research and fish landing surveys. Here we report on shark s...

Some fish groups are common on coral reefs, but we still lack fundamental information about how fish assemblages vary across seascapes. The order Tetraodontiformes, which includes pufferfish, triggerfish, shingles, porcupinefish, burrfish, leatherjacketfish, filefish, and trunkfish, is one such group. We systematically surveyed 75 sites around 52 i...