Highlighting the species diversity, pricing trends, and conservation concerns in a major ornamental fish hub
Ho, S. C. L.; Chan, J. C.; Lee, W. H.; Sung, Y. H.; Liew, J. H.
Show abstract
The global ornamental fish trade presents significant challenges to conservation of biodiversity. Here we explore patterns in the freshwater ornamental fish market in Hong Kong, a major wildlife trading hub. Weekly surveys over three-months in the primary aquarium district documented 540 freshwater fish species from 73 families. We found that species occurrence in the market was largely price-driven, and minimum retail price was the strongest predictor of their frequency of occurrence. Along the occurrence-price gradient, we found that potentially undescribed species dominated the rare/expensive end of the market, potentially influenced by the anthropogenic allee effect. Alarmingly, 86 species (16%) were potentially undescribed, while 38% were either not evaluated or classified as Data Deficient by the IUCN. While common/cheaper species dominate the market, the substantial number of little-known species being sold is of conservation concern, underscoring the need for more extensive monitoring at the risk of losing them to unregulated exploitation.
Matching journals
The top 5 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
- Faecal DNA to the rescue: Shotgun sequencing of non-invasive samples reveals two subspecies of Southeast Asian primates to be Critically Endangered species 92%
- The critical role of natural history museums in advancing eDNA for biodiversity studies: a case study with Amazonian fishes 92%
- Monitoring fish communities through environmental DNA metabarcoding in the fish pass system of the second largest hydropower plant in the world 91%
Similar papers in this journal
- The effects of host availability and fitness on Aedes albopictus blood feeding patterns in New York 87%
- Spatial Patterns of Dengue Incidence in Nepal During Record Outbreaks in 2022 and 2023: Implications for Public Health Interventions 86%
- Making Pastoralists Count: Geospatial Methods for the Health Surveillance of Nomadic Populations 86%
Similar papers in this journal
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.