A decision support tool for designing effective MPAs for sharks and rays

Sharks and rays are facing a global crisis, with a quarter of all species threatened with extinction. In response to these concerns, there is growing support for spatial management actions such as marine protected areas to... [ view full abstract ]

Sharks and rays are facing a global crisis, with a quarter of all species threatened with extinction. In response to these concerns, there is growing support for spatial management actions such as marine protected areas to protect species from overfishing. While species occurrence information and the current global reserve network are widely available to managers, geographic information system (GIS) techniques are often required to inform reserve formulations. Furthermore, a countries’ capacity to effectively manage protected areas means there is often uncertainty of where to invest efforts to limit exploitation and maximise return on investment. We describe a new decision support tool that visualises global hotspots for sharks and rays, and overlaps these areas with spatial jurisdictions and existing protected areas. This interactive web-based tool uses extent of occurrence and movement information from >1000 shark and ray species, along with economic and social factors to help inform where to allocate resources to achieve a higher likelihood of success. Our R-Shiny application is free and open source and can be used without any prior knowledge of GIS, software licences or fluency in computer programming. In this talk we outline current features and limitations, and illustrate how researchers and conservation practitioners may use these metrics to guide spatial conservation priorities for sharks and rays.