Rays and Skates

General Information

North Sea

Baltic Sea

Clyde Marine Region

Adriatic Sea

Eastern Mediterranean Sea

Rays and Skates

Layer Info
Category	Ecology
Sub-category	Fish

Description

Rays and Skates are commonly known as Elasmobranchs, which include, sharks, skates and ray, they differ from other fish in the sea by having a skeletal structure made out of cartilage as opposed to bone. They are vulnerable to overfishing and once depleted, populations take a long time to recover. Rays and Skates are slow growing, late to reach maturity and typically have low fecundity, thus the number of individual fish recruited into a population on an annual basis is low.

Diet: Rays and Skates have similar feeding habits as they are both bottom-dwellers. They generally feed on various species of crustaceans like crabs and shrimps. Additionally, small fish and clams and mussels depending on the size of the ray or skate. They also consume a variety of worms and other small invertebrates that inhabit the seabed.

Threats: Young Rays and Skates are large enough to get caught as by-catch in trawl nets and dredge gear. Relatively a small proportion will actually reach breeding age, and those that do only produce enough of young later in life to help rebuild the population. Furthermore, the destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling, can damage the seabed and habitats.

Not applicable. This layer is not yet available in the MSP Challenge North Sea Edition.

North Sea Digital Twin

In the North Sea Digital Twin Edition, the layer 'Sharks and Rays Abundance' include both Sharks and Rays. The layer is retrieved from the EMODnet Biology database, and was last updated in 2023-12.

Not applicable. This layer is not yet available in the MSP Challenge Baltic Sea Edition.

Information

Add species from EwE

Types

• Extremely Low
• Low
• Medium
• High
• Extra High

Metadata

Data Source

Rays and Skates is a month-by-month, computer generated data layer following calculations made by the ecosystem simulation (EwE). For more information on how Ecopath-with-Ecosim (EwE) works, please visit our Wiki page or visit the official EwE website at https://ecopath.org.

For detailed information on how the simulation works for the Clyde Marine Region Edition, we recommend further exploring our research publication called "Combining ecosystem modeling with serious gaming in support of transboundary maritime spatial planning".

Not applicable. This layer is not yet available in the MSP Challenge Adriatic Sea Edition.

Types

• Very Low Density

• Low Density
• Medium Density
• High Density
• Very High Density

Metadata

Data Source

Rays and skates is a month-by-month, computer generated data layers following calculations made by the ecosystem simulation (EwE). The simplified EwE Eastern Mediterranean model was adjusted for use in the MSP Challenge by Eyal Ofir.

For more information on how Ecopath-with-Ecosim (EwE) works, please visit our Wiki page or visit the official EwE website at https://ecopath.org.