Publications & Contributions

A comprehensive database of Project Seahorse outputs

175 Results for: Research paper

Visible Implant Elastomer color determination, tag visibility, and tag loss: potential sources of error for mark-recapture studies

Errors in visible implant elastomer (VIE) color determination may exert stronger influences on mark–recapture data quality than poor tag visibility and tag loss. I applied individual VIE tags to 567 wild long-snouted seahorses Hippocampus guttulatus using four fluorescent colors (red, orange, green, and yellow). Given VIE tag data were compared with tag data recorded by …

Exploitation and trade of Australian seahorses, pipehorses, sea dragons and pipefishes (Family Syngnathidae)

Seahorses and their syngnathid relatives have provided a focus for efforts to ensure sustainable use of marine resources, with new international trade controls (CITES Appendix II) implemented in May 2004. We demonstrate how a study of international trade can be used to assess relative levels of threat and set domestic research and conservation priorities. Australia …

Scale and sustainability of marine bioprospecting for pharmaceuticals

Collecting marine organisms for the discovery and development of pharmaceuticals has been perceived variously as sustaining and threatening conservation. Our initial expectations that marine bioprospecting might pose conservation challenges were largely not confirmed. Thousands of marine species have been collected for initial assessment, but usually only in very small amounts. Very few compounds are sufficiently …

Threatened Fishes of the World: Hippocampus comes Cantor 1850 (Syngnathidae)

Hippocampus comes is presently exploited at significant rates in the central portion of – and possibly throughout –its range. The species is traded in dried form for traditional medicine and alive for the aquarium trade. Here we provide the most current life history, abundance and distribution information available for H. comes. These data should be …

Life history of an unusual marine fish: survival, growth and movement patterns of Hippocampus guttulatus Cuvier 1829

The life history of the long-snouted seahorse Hippocampus guttulatus was characterized using mark-recapture data collected within a focal study site and catch data from 53 additional sites in the Ria Formosa coastal lagoon, southern Portugal. Population structure in benthic habitats was characterized by high local densities (0·3–1·5 m−2), equal sex ratios and few juveniles <70 …

Enhancing sustainability of the international trade in seahorses with a single minimum size limit

Management tools are needed to help regulate the international trade in seahorses (Hippocampus spp.) under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora. Given the limited understanding of seahorse population dynamics and fishing mortality, a single minimum size limit for all seahorse species appears to be a useful initial …

Magnitude and inferred impacts of the seahorse trade in Latin America

Seahorses (genus Hippocampus) are traded globally for use in traditional medicines, souvenirs and as aquarium fishes. Indications that the trade was expanding geographically in response to increasing demand in consuming nations prompted this first study of the seahorse trade in Latin America. In 2000, over 400 people related to the seahorse trade in Mexico, Central …

Molecular evidence for long-distance colonization in an Indo-Pacific seahorse lineage

Mitochondrial control region (mtDNA CR) diversity within and among 6 seahorse populations associated with the Indo-Pacific Hippocampus kuda complex (H. kuda from India, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, H. fuscus from the Red Sea and H. capensis from South Africa) was compared to determine whether there was support for the hypothesis that seahorses are able …

Magnitude and trends of marine fish curio imports to the USA

The curio trade in marine fishes has not previously been quantitatively analysed. As a contribution towards understanding the scale and conservation impact of such trade we summarize import and export data from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service for 1997–2001. At least 32 fish species were involved in the USA’s international trade in curios, …