Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34230097›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021

Fossil dermal denticles reveal the preexploitation baseline of a Caribbean coral reef shark community.

Erin M Dillon, Douglas J McCauley, Jorge Manuel Morales-Saldaña, Nicole D Leonard, Jian-Xin Zhao, Aaron O'Dea

Open access · bronzeAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed
10.9field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Prehistoric archives reveal evidence of predator loss and prey release in Caribbean reef fish communities.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Review
  6. Courtship and Reproduction of the Whitetip Reef SharkAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022
    Article
  7. Fossil dermal denticles reveal the preexploitation baseline of a Caribbean coral reef shark community.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 3 institutions in 4 countries.

Erin M DillonDepartment of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106; erinmdillon@ucsb.edu.ORCID 0000-0003-0249-027X
Douglas J McCauleyDepartment of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106.
Jorge Manuel Morales-SaldañaSmithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Republic of Panama.ORCID 0000-0001-7961-1725
Nicole D LeonardRadiogenic Isotope Facility, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, QLD 4072 Brisbane, Australia.ORCID 0000-0003-2578-7738
Jian-Xin ZhaoRadiogenic Isotope Facility, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, QLD 4072 Brisbane, Australia.ORCID 0000-0002-2413-6178
Aaron O'DeaSmithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Republic of Panama.ORCID 0000-0001-5495-4764
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute · PAThe University of Queensland · AUUniversity of California, Santa Barbara · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Preexploitation shark baselines and the history of human impact on coral reef-associated shark communities in the Caribbean are tpoorly understood. We recovered shark dermal denticles from mid-Holocene (∼7 ky ago) and modern reef sediments in Bocas del Toro, Caribbean Panama, to reconstruct an empirical shark baseline before major human impact and to quantify how much the modern shark community in the region had shifted from this historical reference point. We found that denticle accumulation rates, a proxy for shark abundance, declined by 71% since the mid-Holocene. All denticle morphotypes, which reflect shark community composition, experienced significant losses, but those morphotypes found on fast-swimming, pelagic sharks (e.g., families Carcharhinidae and Sphyrnidae) declined the most. An analysis of historical records suggested that the steepest decline in shark abundance occurred in the late 20th century, coinciding with the advent of a targeted shark fishery in Panama. Although the disproportionate loss of denticles characterizing pelagic sharks was consistent with overfishing, the large reduction in denticles characterizing demersal species with low commercial value (i.e., the nurse shark

Indexed as

Animal ScalesCoral ReefsFossilsAnimalsCaribbean RegionConservation of Natural ResourcesGeologic SedimentsHuman ActivitiesHumansPanamaSharksTime FactorsBocas del Toroconservation paleobiologymid-Holocenesharksubfossil

Identifiers

PMID34230097
PMCPMC8307454
OpenAlexW3182632124

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.