Diversity of fish

Fish come in many shapes and sizes. This is a sea dragon, a close relative of the seahorse. They are
camouflaged to look like floating seaweed.[1][2][3]
The deep sea Lasiognathus amphirhamphus is a rare ambush predator known only from a single
female specimen (pictured).[4] It is an angler fish that "angles" for its prey with a lure attached to a line
from its head.
Fish are very diverse animals and can be categorised in many ways. This article is an overview of
some of ways in which fish are categorised. Although most fish species have probably been discovered
and described, about 250 new ones are still discovered every year. According to FishBase, 33,100
species of fish had been described by April 2015.[5] That is more than the combined total of all other
vertebrate species: mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds.
Fish species diversity is roughly divided equally between marine (oceanic) and freshwater ecosystems.
Coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific constitute the centre of diversity for marine fishes, whereas continental
freshwater fishes are most diverse in large river basins of tropical rainforests, especially the Amazon,
Congo, and Mekong basins. More than 5,600 fish species inhabit Neotropical freshwaters alone, such
that Neotropical fishes represent about 10% of all vertebrate species on the Earth. Exceptionally rich
sites in the Amazon basin, such as Canto State Park, can contain more freshwater fish species than
occur in all of Europe.[6]

By species

Fish systematics is the formal description and organisation of fish taxa into systems. It is complex and
still evolving. Controversies over "arcane, but important, details of classification are still quietly
raging."[7]
The term "fish" describes any non-tetrapod chordate, (i.e., an animal with a backbone), that has gills
throughout life and has limbs, if any, in the shape of fins.[8] Unlike groupings such as birds or
mammals, fish are not a single clade but a paraphyletic collection of taxa, including jawless,
cartilaginous and skeletal types.[9][10]
Jawless fish

Jawless fish were the earliest fish to evolve. There is current debate over whether these are really fish
at all. They have no jaw, no scales, no paired fins, and no bony skeleton. Their skin is smooth and soft
to the touch, and they are very flexible. Instead of a jaw, they possess an oral sucker. They use this to
fasten onto other fish, and then use their rasp-like teeth to grind through their host's skin into the
viscera. Jawless fish inhabit both fresh and salt water environments. Some are anadromous, moving
between both fresh and salt water habitats.
Extant jawless fish are either lamprey or hagfish. Juvenile lamprey feed by sucking up mud containing
micro-organisms and organic debris. The lamprey has well-developed eyes, while the hagfish has only
primitive eyespots. The hagfish coats itself and carcasses it finds with noxious slime to deter predators,
and periodically ties itself into a knot to scrape the slime off. It is the only invertebrate fish and the
only animal which has a skull but no vertebral column.[11] It has four hearts, two brains, and a paddlelike tail.
Cartilaginous fish

Cartilaginous fish have a cartilaginous skeleton. However, their ancestors were bony animals, and
were the first fish to develop paired fins. Cartilaginous fish don't have swim bladders. Their skin is
covered in placoid scales (dermal denticles) that are as rough as sandpaper. Because cartilaginous fish
do not have bone marrow, the spleen and special tissue around the gonads produces red blood cells.
Their tails can be asymmetric, with the upper lobe longer than the lower lobe. Some cartilaginous
fishes possess an organ called Leydig's Organ which also produces red blood cells.
There are over 980 species of cartilaginous fish. They include sharks, rays and chimaera.

Tiger shark

Whale shark

Stingray

This elephant fish is a chimaera

Bony fish

Bony fish include the lobe-finned fish and the ray finned fish. The lobe-finned fish is the class of
fleshy finned fishes, consisting of lungfish, and coelacanths. They are bony fish with fleshy, lobed
paired fins, which are joined to the body by a single bone.[13] These fins evolved into the legs of the
first tetrapod land vertebrates, amphibians. Ray finned fishes are so-called because they possess
lepidotrichia or "fin rays", their fins being webs of skin supported by bony or horny spines ("rays").
There are three types of ray finned fishes: the chondrosteans, holosteans, and teleosts. The
chondrosteans and holosteans are among the earlier fish to evolve, and share characteristics with both
teleosts and sharks. In comparison with the other chondrosteans, the holosteans are closer to the
teleosts and further from sharks.

Lungfish can breathe in air as well as water

Model of a coelacanth, thought until 1938 to be extinct. They are deep blue.

This Atlantic sturgeon is a chondrostean

This bowfin is a holostean

Teleosts

Teleosts are the most advanced or "modern" fishes. They are overwhelmingly the dominant class of
fishes (or for that matter, vertebrates) with nearly 30,000 species, covering about 96 percent of all
extant fish species. They are ubiquitous throughout fresh water and marine environments from the
deep sea to the highest mountain streams. Included are nearly all the important commercial and
recreational fishes.[14]
Teleosts have a movable maxilla and premaxilla and corresponding modifications in the jaw
musculature. These modifications make it possible for teleosts to protrude their jaws outwards from
the mouth.[15][16] The caudal fin is homocercal, meaning the upper and lower lobes are about equal in
size. The spine ends at the caudal peduncle, distinguishing this group from those in which the spine
extends into the upper lobe of the caudal fin.[15]

Swordfish are teleosts

Rose fish are also teleosts

Eels are teleosts too

So are seahorses

small-scale fish harvesting

Most small-scale fisheries are open access in nature and are located in rural areas, on lakes, estuaries,
lagoons, and coastal. Small-scale fisheries are highly dynamic, labour-intensive and usually wellintegrated with local marketing arrangements.
Mechanical sophistication is rather poor; catch per fishing craft and productivity per fisherman is low;
the fishing range is short; political influence is slight; the catch is sold at scattered landing points and
often changes with seasonal fluctuations.
Small-scale fisheries generally operate using low capital investment in boat and equipment per fisher
on board. Nonetheless, small-scale fishing is not a subsistence activity but a series of activities
which are capable of generating significant economic exchanges.

Fishing vessels
Within a given region, with homogenous socio-economic characteristics, boats which are smaller size
and lower in technological investment per fishers are usually considered small-scale and/ or artisanal.
The amount of technology and sophistication ranges from undecked canoes to gillnetters with onboard fish-detection systems.

Fishing techniques
A range of fishing methods also considered small-scale/artisanal require no vessel and involve simple
technology. These include beach seines, various cast and lift nets, fishing by hook and line from shore,
fish traps and weirs (large and small), and manual harvesting (seaweed, bivalves, crabs, etc.) in coastal

zones. Techniques vary enormously from small-scale tuna longlining to shrimp stow net fishing.
In some areas, illegal fishing practices are used resulting in indiscriminate fishing and devastation to
the habitat. These range from the use of explosives and poisons to the use of highly destructive fishing
gears, methods and techniques by small-scale fishers.
The environmental impact of fishing includes issues such as the availability of fish,
overfishing, fisheries, and fisheries management; as well as the impact of fishing on other
elements of the environment, such as by-catch. These issues are part of marine conservation, and
are addressed in fisheries science programs. There is a growing gap between the supply of fish
and demand, due in part to world population growth. Similar to other environmental issues, there
can be conflict between the fishermen who depend on fishing for their income, and fishery
scientists whose studies indicate that if future fish populations are to be sustainable then some
fisheries must reduce or even close.
The journal Science published a four-year study in November 2006, which predicted that, at
prevailing trends, the world would run out of wild-caught seafood in 2048. The scientists stated
that the decline was a result of overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors that were
reducing the population of fisheries at the same time as their ecosystems were being annihilated.
Yet again the analysis has met criticism as being fundamentally flawed, and many fishery
management officials, industry representatives and scientists challenge the findings, although the
debate continues. Many countries, such as Tonga, the United States, Australia and Bahamas, and
international management bodies have taken steps to appropriately manage marine resources.

Impact of Unsustainable Fishing Practices on Sea Bed and Ocean Productivity

Fishery resources, the harvest of the oceans, are concentrated in marine areas where the
environmental conditions support a high productivity. Such areas are found in coastal waters as
well as in deeper waters on the continental shelves and around seamounts (Roberts et al., 2006;
Garcia et al., 2007).
The severe decline of stocks in many traditional coastal fishing grounds has given rise to an
increase in regulations. This, in turn, has intensified the search for new and less controlled fish
stocks and fishing grounds. Modern technology, such as remote sensing, sonar and Global
Positioning Systems, together with incentives and subsidies, has brought deep-water and high sea
areas and habitats with high production, such as continental slopes, seamounts, cold-water coral
reefs, deep-sea sponge fields, into the reach of fishing fleets trying to exploit the last refuges for
commercial fish species. Fishing vessels are now operating at depths greater than 400 metres,
sometimes as great as 1,500 to 2,000 metres (Morato et al., 2006a). New species are being

targeted, often with great success and large catches in the first 23 years.
However, this success is in most cases only short-lived, and followed quickly by a complete
collapse of stocks (boom and bust cycle). Especially seamounts with their unique and often
endemic fauna are particularly vulnerable to trawling (Koslow et al., 2001; Morato et al., 2006b).
The reason for this is the special life history of many deep-water organisms, including fish
species of commercial interest. Unlike their counterparts which are adapted to live in the much
more variable and dynamic shallow waters systems, deep sea fish species are characterised by
low reproduction and fecundity, long life, and reach maturity at a late stage. Orange roughy, one
of the species often targeted by deep-water and seamount fisheries, matures from 20 to 30 years
of age. Individuals can live to more than 200 years of age, which means that a fish ending up on
a dinner plate could have hatched at the time of Napoleon Bonaparte. These traits render deepwater fish stocks highly vulnerable to overfishing with little resilience to over-exploitation
(Morato et al., 2006b; Cheung et al, 2007). With very few exceptions, and especially without
proper control and management, deep-sea fisheries cannot be considered as a replacement for
declining resources in shallower waters (Morato et al., 2006a).
Among the most destructive fishing methods in the World is bottom trawling (Thrush and
Dayton, 2002; Pusceddu et al., 2005; Tillin et al., 2006; de Juan et al., 2007, Hixon et al., 2007).
Large nets, kept open and weighted down by heavy doors and metal rollers, are dragged by a
trawler across the sea bed. This virtually plows and levels the seafloor, picking up fish and
shrimps but also catching, crushing and destroying other marine life.
The North Sea and Grand Banks have been major sites of bottom trawling, with some traditional
and easily accessible areas being trawled multiple times per year. Indeed, landings data collated
for round- and flatfish caught in the northern, central and southern North Sea from 1906 to 2000
as proxies for total otter and beam trawl effort, respectively, indicate that the southern and much
of the central North Sea were fished intensively throughout the 20th century, whilst the northern
North Sea was less exploited, especially in earlier decades. The fisheries efforts intensified
markedly from the 1960s onwards. Biogeographical changes from the beginning to the end of the
century occurred in 27 of 48 taxa. In 14 taxa, spatial presence was reduced by 50% or more,
most notably in the southern and central North Sea; often these were long-lived, slow-growing
species with vulnerable shells or tests. By contrast, 12 taxa doubled their spatial presence
throughout the North Sea. Most biogeographical changes had happened by the 1980s. Given that
other important environmental changes, including eutrophication and climate change, have
gained importance mainly from the 1980s onwards, the study concluded that the changes in
epibenthos observed since the beginning of the 20th century have resulted primarily from
intensified fisheries (Callaway et al., 2007). Whereas trawling in shallow coastal waters is often
carried out by smaller vessels, deep-water and high sea bottom trawling requires large and
powerful ships. Such fleets are mostly based in industrialised countries, but fish intensively and
for months at a time across the Worlds oceans. Often these distant water fishing fleets are

fuelled and kept afloat (literally) by subsidies and incentives, without which their operation
would hardly be economically viable.
A decade ago, there was still much debate on the impacts on bottom trawling, as summarized in
several reviews including those by the FAO. Today, there is a much larger growing body of
empirical evidence, along with improved models, that document severe impact of trawling
worldwide (Hiddink et al., 2006a, b, c; Hiddink et al., 2006; 2007; Callaway et al., 2007; Davies
et al., 2007; Gray et al., 2006; Tillin et al., 2006). This includes, but is not limited to, China (Yu
et al., 2007); the North Atlantic region (Tillin et al., 2006; Callaway et al., 2007; Eastwood et al.,
2007; Kensington et al., 2007; Liwuete et al., 2007; Waller et al., 2007); the Wadden Sea (Buhs
and Reise, 1997; Lotze, 2005); the Mediterranean (Coll et al., 2007); the Caribbean (Garcia et
al., 2007); the East and Western Pacific (Pitcher et al., 2000; Hixon and Tissot, 2007; Fergusson
et al., 2008); and the South Atlantic (Keunecke et al., 2007). Several of these studies have
reported reductions in taxa and/or abundance in the range of 2080% following years of
intensive trawling (compared to pristine and/or historic data). This is especially so for demersals
and benthic fauna, with reductions reported up to 80% on fishing grounds. The damage exceeds
over half of the sea bed area of many fishing grounds, and is worst in inner and middle parts of
the continental shelves, severly affecting in particular small-scale coastal fishing communites
(Dcruz et al., 1994; Liquete et al., 2007). Unlike their shallow water counterparts, deep sea
communities recover slowly, over decades. Indeed, the impact varies with type of trawl, habitat
and frequency and intensity of trawling (Kaiser et al., 2006; Quieros et al., 2006). Trawling at the
scales frequently observed today accounts for a major or even the most damaging practice in the
fisheries industry. Studies have suggested that the impacts of trawling on the seabed equals or
exceeds the impact of all other types of fishing combined (Eastwood et al., 2007).
Bycatch is also a major problem associated with trawling (Kumar and Deepthi, 2006). For many
coastal populations, large-scale, industrial bottom trawling of their tradional fishing grounds
(often carried out unregulated illegally and unreported by distant fishing fleets) ruins local
fisheries with devastating effects on local fishermen, industry and livelihoods. Many of the larger
ships process the fish directly onboard in enormous quantities. Most likely over one-third of the
World catch is simply discarded due to inappropriate fish sizes, or simply due to unintended
bycatch, particularly as a result of bottom trawling (Kumar and Deepthi, 2006).
Bottom trawling physically impacts the seabed and thereby some of the most productive marine
habitat. Moreover, the intensity of the fisheries is a critical factor as it may take place
simultaneously with other pressures, including land-related or climate change threats. Over 65%
of the Worlds seagrass communities have been lost by land reclamation, eutrophication, disease
and unsustainable fishing practices (Lotze et al., 2006), and nearly all cold-water coral reefs
observed in the North East Atlantic show scars and impacts from bottom trawling.
It is important, however, to realize that many types of fishing gear other than trawling may be

severely damaging as well. A major challenge is the fact that very modest levels of trawling may
increase productivity of certain genera, and localized small-scale trawling practices will likely
have limited impact. Much debate has taken place on fisheries and particularly bottom trawling,
and many reviews have pointed to the effect that the practice sometimes may be sustainable in
some regions. However, given the capacity of most of the worlds fishing fleet, of growing
pollution, climate change and coastal development, little doubt now remains that trawling
practices in very many places are quite unsustainable (Callaway et al., 2007; Davies et al., 2007).
In the light of the impact which bottom trawling has on the marine fauna, ecosystems and
biodiversity, more than 1,400 scientists and marine experts have signed a petition. International
policy and decision makers started to address this issue in 2003/4, and the 58th session of the
United Nations General Assembly considered proposals for a moratorium on bottom trawling
and called for urgent consideration of ways to integrate and improve, on a scientific basis, the
management of risks to the marine biodiversity of seamounts, cold water coral reefs and certain
other underwater features.
However, without marine protected areas and appropriate enforcement, especially in the deeper
waters and the high seas, these damaging practices are continuing. Without increased regulation,
governance, enforcement and surveillance on the high seas and on the continental shelves in
many regions, unsustainable and damaging fishing practices will continue. Currently, there is
virtually no protection of the vulnerable marine ecosystems and biodiversity occurring on
continental shelves. Indeed, in most regions, marine protected areas (MPAs) are non-existent, in
others they only amount to less than 1% of the marine area. Targets have been set for setting up
MPA networks and systems, however, it is apparent that under the current rate of establishment,
the CBDs target and the WPC (World Park Congress) target will not be met (Wood et al. in
press).
Several countries have started some restrictions on bottom trawling in their national waters, but
bottom trawling in areas beyond national jurisdiction is mostly unregulated. A few regional
fisheries management organisations, such as the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission
(NEAFC), have (temporarily) closed some high risk areas beyond national jurisdiction to bottom
fishing in order to protect vulnerable ecosystems. However, these measures apply only to
member states (i.e. not to foreign fishing fleets) and cannot be properly controlled and enforced,
which seriously weakens their effectiveness. There are now discussions ongoing with several
bodies including the FAO on developing better international guidelines for the management of
deep-sea fisheries in the high seas, but urgent action is needed.