- Major threats include overfishing and coastal development
- Highest threat is in species-rich nearshore areas
Abu Dhabi: According to new research from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), NYU Abu Dhabi, and other collaborators, 8.2% of marine bony fishes in the Arabian Gulf are threatened with extinction, which is at least twice the proportion of other regions where similar assessments have been implemented.
The study evaluated the regional conservation status of 471 species of marine bony fishes in the Arabian Gulf. Primary threats include fisheries and harvesting, and coastal development and loss of habitat, impacting 47% and 32% of marine bony fishes, respectively.
Such threats are particularly severe in nearshore areas where spatial analyses indicated high species richness - the number of different species represented in an ecological community, landscape, or region.
Associate Professor of Biology at NYU Abu Dhabi and co-author of the study John Burt said: “This research provides important insights into the conservation status of regional fish species. Given the high diversity and the economic importance of fishes in the region, the development of regionally-focused assessment of extinction risk will allow marine managers and policy makers to target their efforts towards the most vulnerable species.”
He added: “The Gulf is a relatively small and isolated body of water that is surrounded by eight rapidly developing nations. There is a strong need for coordinated conservation efforts among the regional nations to manage these shared fish stocks and to limit trans-boundary threats to marine systems.”
The research shows that threats to fish biodiversity mainly come from overfishing and from loss of habitat related to coastal development, particularly in species-rich nearshore areas along the coast of the UAE and the western Arabian Gulf. Loss of these species is likely to have significant effects on food web dynamics and the availability of fishes for human consumption in the future. The authors recommend that strong conservation and management efforts coordinated at the regional scale are necessary to reduce threats to these ecologically and economically important marine resources.
This study has been published in Biological Conservation.
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About NYU Abu Dhabi
NYU Abu Dhabi is the first comprehensive liberal arts and science campus in the Middle East to be operated abroad by a major American research university. NYU Abu Dhabi has integrated a highly-selective liberal arts, engineering and science curriculum with a world center for advanced research and scholarship enabling its students to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world and advance cooperation and progress on humanity’s shared challenges. NYU Abu Dhabi’s high-achieving students have come from 120 nations and speak over 120 languages. Together, NYU's campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai form the backbone of a unique global university, giving faculty and students opportunities to experience varied learning environments and immersion in other cultures at one or more of the numerous study-abroad sites NYU maintains on six continents.
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