ArticleScience advances2021
The sardine run in southeastern Africa is a mass migration into an ecological trap.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The influence of social cues on timing of animal migrations.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Pooled it
- Environmental Gradients Decouple Demographic and Adaptive Connectivity in a Highly Mobile Coastal Marine Species.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Sex-Linked Differentiation in Commercially Exploited Fishes: Rethinking Population Structure in Dynamic Marine Environments.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Population Genomics Reveals Panmixia in Pacific Sardine (Evolutionary applications · 2025Article
- Resolving the Population Structure and Demographic History of the European Anchovy in the Northeast Atlantic: Tracking Historical and Contemporary Environmental Changes.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Evolution and stability of social learning in animal migration.Movement ecology · 2025Article
- Fisheries shocks provide an opportunity to reveal multiple recruitment sources of sardine in the Sea of Japan.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Intent matters: how flow and forms of information impact collective navigation.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The KwaZulu-Natal sardine run, popularly known as the “greatest shoal on Earth,” is a mass migration of South African sardines from their temperate core range into the subtropical Indian Ocean. It has been suggested that this represents the spawning migration of a distinct subtropical stock. Using genomic and transcriptomic data from sardines collected around the South African coast, we identified two stocks, one cool temperate (Atlantic) and the other warm temperate (Indian Ocean). Unexpectedly, we found that sardines participating in the sardine run are primarily of Atlantic origin and thus prefer colder water. These sardines separate from the warm-temperate stock and move into temporarily favorable Indian Ocean habitat during brief cold-water upwelling periods. Once the upwelling ends, they find themselves trapped in physiologically challenging subtropical habitat and subject to intense predation pressure. This makes the sardine run a rare example of a mass migration that has no apparent fitness benefits.
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Registered trials
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.