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Ecological Intelligence

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Ecological Intelligence / Subject

telemetry

Peer-reviewed Latin America & Caribbean

Tracked manta rays ignore national boundaries

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Eastern Tropical Pacific off Central America, including Costa Rica and Cocos Island
System
Oceanic megafauna / shelf connectivity

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers combined 59 acoustic tags, 12 satellite tags and photographic identification. Among the analysed adult movement subset, 75% crossed jurisdictional boundaries; immature cohorts made greater use of nearshore habitat.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Fixed protected areas need both local nursery protection and collaboration over adult migrations.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Tag coverage and the adult subset limit what can be inferred about the entire giant manta population.

SOURCE

Frontiers in Fish Science — manta ray telemetry (2026)
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Young giant mantas remained near coastal habitats while tracked adults often migrated across jurisdictions.

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Peer-reviewed Europe

Madeira's pilot whales were residents and travelers at the same time

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Madeira and Northeast Atlantic
System
Pelagic marine mammal migration

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Sixteen tagged short-finned pilot whales tracked between 2018 and 2024 cumulatively crossed a region of 1.17 million square kilometres, yet stayed near Madeira for a mean consecutive 53 days. State modelling linked area-restricted searching to shallow mixed layers and travel to deeper mixing; photo-identification confirmed mixed island-fidelity classes.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Island waters can be valuable seasonal habitat without enclosing a population's range. Marine management should account for time-varying aggregation, dynamic ocean layers and movements across fixed jurisdictional boundaries.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Only sixteen tags, uneven observation periods and environmental associations; not proof of oceanographic causation or protection effectiveness.

SOURCE

Movement Ecology — pilot whale telemetry study (2026)
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Ocean structure helped distinguish seasonal aggregation near an island from Atlantic travel.

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Peer-reviewed

Sharks are using a Mediterranean power-station hotspot as a seasonal thermal landscape

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Orot-Rabin power station and Israeli Mediterranean coast
System
Coastal infrastructure / eastern Mediterranean

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Telemetry from 35 dusky and 23 sandbar sharks showed low interannual return to the broader region but pronounced within-season residency around the Orot-Rabin power station. Visits showed seasonal and diel structure, and shark body temperature increased during visits and exceeded ambient conditions, consistent with use of the thermal plume for thermoregulatory benefit.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Infrastructure can create ecological attractors that function differently from the surrounding seascape. Understanding those attractors requires treating temperature, movement and human exposure together rather than classifying the site only as industrial habitat or disturbance.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is an observational study of one aggregation site and two shark species. Thermoregulation is a supported interpretation rather than an experimentally isolated mechanism, and aggregation at infrastructure can also increase exposure to fishing, vessel traffic or other risks.

SOURCE

Movement Ecology
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Telemetry on 58 dusky and sandbar sharks found strong within-season residency at an Israeli power station, where body temperatures rose during visits despite low year-to-year return.

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