Realm: Marine
Climate: Temperate
Biome: Temperate Shelf and seas ecoregions
Central latitude: 32.417160
Central longitude: 34.869514
Duration: 4 years, from 2016 to 2022

132 records

7 distinct species

Across the time series Dasyatis pastinaca is the most frequently occurring species

Methods

Weekly transects were conducted along two fixed routes in Gdor MPA (32.417160 N, 34.869514 E), off the Israeli coast, for a total period of six years. The first transect route was surveyed between 2016 and 2017, whereas in 2018 the transect was slightly amended to avoid regions with few observations (i.e. a single batoid observation across all 20162017 surveys in the southern part of the transect). Transect locations were chosen in order to survey varied habitats, as stingrays and guitarfish are seen in both sand and reef habitats, and in habitats with varying levels of complexity. The first transect was 1180 m in length and approximately 30 m in width, whereas the second transect was 800~ m in length but with the same width. The first transect consisted of 51% rocky reef and 49% sand cover, whereas the second transect consisted of 45% reef and 55% sand cover. The maximum depth of both transects was 7.5 m. The global positioning system (GPS) was used to map the survey route and navigation checkpoints. The site substrate (reef and sand cover percentages) was digitized using Google Earth satellite imagery. The survey was conducted using breath-hold diving along fixed transects, with beginning and end points alternated between weeks. Although 2016-2017 surveys slightly differ from the transects of 2018-2022, the two highly overlapp and are suggested as valid for continuous time series (2016-2022) by the authors (see section 2.1 in Chaikin, S., Belmaker, J., & Barash, A. (2020). Coastal breeding aggregations of threatened stingrays and guitarfish in the Levant. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 30(6), 1160-1171.?). Please notice that while original data had zero abundance records, those are not retained in BioTIME as per standards - contact data collector for this data if needed. When a batoid was observed it was photographed and identified.Special body marks (e.g. scars, cut tail, stripes) were also documented and further used to avoid duplicate observations within the same survey. Between late April 2016 and late June 2017, the transect was repeated 55 times. In 2018 and 2022, the shorter transect was repeated 31 times over a period of 4 months starting from early March until early July (with 86 transects altogether).Surveys were conducted at different times of day (06:0018:00 h), but no relationship between the number of batoid observation per transect and time of day was found.for more information please see Chaikin, S., Belmaker, J., & Barash, A. (2020). Coastal breeding aggregations of threatened stingrays and guitarfish in the Levant. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 30(6), 1160-1171.?

Citation(s)

@Article{BioTIME_cit407, Study_id = {664}, Citation_id = {407}, Author = {Chaikin, Shahar and Barash, Adi and Belmaker, Jonathan}, Journal = {Aquatic Conservation: Marine and freshwater ecosystems}, Pages = {1160-1171}, Title = {Coastal breeding aggregations of threatened stingrays and guitarfish in the Levant}, Volume = {30}, Year = {2020}, Doi = {10.1002/aqc.3305}, Language = {English} }