Critical life stage and spatial analyses of shark and ray species in the Albanian territorial waters

Chondrichthyans represent a diverse group of cartilaginous fishes that includes sharks, skates, rays, and chimaeras. The conservation of Mediterranean chondrichthyans faces challenges not only from the fishery industry itself, but also from the significant unreliability of official catch data. The species in this group often occupy upper trophic levels, displaying K-selected life history traits characterized by slow growth, late maturity, low fecundity and long gestation periods. The Mediterranean Sea is known to be a chondrichthyan-rich area inhabited by 88 species, of which almost half are consistently recorded in the basin. The Adriatic Sea represents a sub-basin and falls within the northeastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. Based on the data collected in the frame of MEDITS survey programme (International bottom trawl survey in the Mediterranean) during the year 2023, we conducted the relative analyses for identifying the recruits and spawners abundance of Mediterranean starry ray (Raja asterias), brown ray (Raja miraletus), blackmouth catshark (Galeus melastomus) and lesser spotted dogfish (Scyliorhinus canicula). In addition, we did some preliminary spatial analyses in order to identify the spatial hotspots of each considered species spawners and recruits in Albanian territorial waters. These are the first reported spatial analyses data so far and other analyses would be required to identify important shark and ray areas in Adriatic Sea.