Jose Castro, Ph.D. Resident Scientist The Center for Shark Research Mote Marine Laboratory Sarasota, Florida

"Shark Sex!"
Shark Diversity, Evolutionary Success & Vivaparity

Wolfe University Center 155 ~ Biscayne Bay Campus
Florida International University
Thursday, March 31, 2005, 2:00 PM

During 1985 and 1986, Dr. Jose Castro conducted a survey of shark species found off Trinidad and Tobago for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in order to determine the feasibility of shark fisheries in the area. He discovered that living and fresh-caught yellow or golden hammerhead are a striking bright yellow or orange and economically important in Trinidad, as they are among the most abundant sharks in market catches as well as part of the by-catch of shrimp trawlers and of various small gill net fisheries. Every day, Dr. Castro was able to examine dozens of specimens at the Port of Spain fish market. Castro also used mesh bottom gill nets to catch these sharks throughout most of the year, thereby filling in many gaps in our knowledge of the basic life history of this remarkably pigmented shark.

Dr. Castro is a resident scientist at the Mote Marine Laboratory (MML), an independent, nonprofit marine research institution with a nearly fifty-year history of shark research. The Center for Shark Research (CSR) there is an international center for laboratory and field research, scientific collaboration, consulting, education, and public information on sharks and their relatives, the skates and rays. The CSR research mission includes basic and applied studies of all aspects of shark biology, from anatomy and physiology to ecology and fisheries science. CSR scientists investigate the various biological adaptations of sharks to their marine environment, with an emphasis on the role of sharks as an important marine resource. Included within the CSR is the MML Biomedical Research Program, which concentrates on sharks and skates as laboratory models for studies of disease-resistance. Designated by the U.S. Congress in 1991 as a national research center, the CSR conducts cooperative research with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and other organizations.

Publications:

Castro, Jose'. 1983. The Sharks of North American Waters. Texas A&M University Press, Texas A&M University.

A Field Guide to the Sharks Commonly Caught in Commercial Fisheries of the Southeastern United States, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, Southeast Fisheries Science Center, (1993).

Castro, Jose I. Castro and D. Bryan Stone, The Sharks of North American Waters, Texas A & M University Press (1996).

This lecture is presented in partnership with: