Highly Migratory Species

For both seabirds and elasmobranchs, the ecological knowledge still remains fragmentary and geographically limited, making it difficult to forecast realistic population trends. Further, for many of these species, migration corridors, breeding and foraging areas of preference are poorly known/ understood. Such vast knowledge gaps not only seriously limit the efficiency of local protection measures with regard to these species, but also could mask important signals of their response to natural/anthropogenic changes in the ecosystems.

What is the distribution of species? When and when do they move? What are their migratory pathways? What is the connectivity of populations?

The project main challenges are to fill in major knowledge gaps in the geographic distribution and movements of seabirds and elasmobranchs (sharks and rays) in the Mediterranean and Black Sea Basins; and identify as best as feasible migration corridors and the interconnected breeding, foraging and wintering areas.

The project follows both a participatory science and experimental approach.