Dear Colleagues, 

Cartilaginous fish (sharks, skates, rays, and chimaeras) occupy the top of aquatic food webs, playing an important functional role in the control of coastal and oceanic ecosystem structure and operation. They are also commonly recognized as extremely evocative species in most of the world’s cultures. Due to their k-selected life history, they are particularly sensitive to habitat degradation, pollution, and changes in biological communities’ compositions (e.g., alien species or biodiversity loss). Moreover, they are considered as bycatch for the majority of worldwide industrial and artisanal fisheries, with low rates of post-release survival, an issue that essentially led to a dramatic decline in many stocks. Nonetheless, data on their stock status still remain poor or nonexistent.

In this Special Issue, we invite contributors to submit research articles on life history traits (e.g., reproduction, age, and growth), trophic ecology, genetic information, and updated data on their distribution in order to collect information helpful to developing conservation plans for these top marine predators.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Cristina Porcu
Dr. Andrea Bellodi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biology is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• cartilaginous fish
• reproduction
• age and growth
• trophic ecology
• genetic information
• conservation
• distribution
• management