Abstract
Shark nurseries are essential habitats for shark survival. Notwithstanding the rich fossil record of the modern great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias, GWS), its use of nursery areas in the fossil record has never been assessed before. Here, we analysed the fossil record of the GWS from three South American Pliocene localities, assessed body size distributions and applied previously established criteria to identify palaeo-nurseries. We found that juveniles dominate the Coquimbo locality (Chile), whereas subadults and adults characterize Pisco (Peru) and Caldera (Chile), respectively. These results, summed to the paleontological and paleoenvironmental record of the region, suggest that Coquimbo represents the first nursery area for the GWS in the fossil record. Our findings demonstrate that one of the top predators in today’s oceans has used nursery areas for millions of years, highlighting their importance as essential habitats for shark survival in deep time.
Highlights
Shark nurseries are essential habitats for shark survival
Nursery areas are defined by the following criteria: there is higher relative abundance of juveniles and neonates compared to others areas; immature sharks must show a tendency to return and stay for long periods of time; they are used by immature sharks over years[1,2]; and they are geographically discrete zones that provide two main benefits: protection from predation and abundant food resources[1]
The identification of nursery areas has significantly increased in recent years in an effort to mitigate of declines in shark numbers resulting from various anthropogenic activities and their impacts[1]
Summary
Shark nurseries are essential habitats for shark survival. Notwithstanding the rich fossil record of the modern great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias, GWS), its use of nursery areas in the fossil record has never been assessed before. Nursery areas are defined by the following criteria: there is higher relative abundance of juveniles and neonates compared to others areas; immature sharks must show a tendency to return and stay for long periods of time; they are used by immature sharks over years[1,2]; and they are geographically discrete zones that provide two main benefits: protection from predation and abundant food resources[1] These criteria have been useful to identify modern nurseries[3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11], some of them can be rather difficult to apply to the fossil record. More recently it has been demonstrated that nursery areas are of utmost importance for maintaining sustainable breeding populations[19,20,21] These have large and long-lasting effects on population size, secure the survival of shark species and influence the distribution of populations[21]. Assessing the presence of its palaeo-nurseries could unravel more details about the evolutionary history the GWS in the south-eastern Pacific and in general, improve our understanding of past diversity and distribution patterns of apex predators
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