Francesco Ferretti

About

The SeaQL Lab at Virginia Tech is an interdisciplinary group working on different aspects of Fisheries Science, Marine Ecology and Conservation. With a special interest in sharks and rays, we look to characterize the structure and function of natural ecosystems and develop solutions for sustainable ocean use. Taking advantage of unorthodox data sources, we attempt to fill knowledge gaps that inform important ecological systems.

Research topics

• Geography
• Ecology
• Fishery
• Computer Science
• Biology
• Environmental resource management
• Business
• Geology
• Geodesy
• Environmental science

Selected publications

• Protecting the global ocean for biodiversity, food and climate

  Nature · 2021 · 750 citations

  DOI

• Species diversity, taxonomy and distribution of Chondrichthyes in the Mediterranean and Black Sea

  The European Zoological Journal · 2020 · 135 citations

  Species diversity assessments are an important step to evaluate the conservation status of a community, both in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. These assessments are pivotal if related to both, the constant increase of human pressure on ecosystems and the anthropogenic climate change occurring nowadays. Sharks and rays are globally threatened, and the situation is particularly alarming in the Mediterranean Sea where more than 50% of species are listed at risk of extinction by the Internationa…

  DOI

• Diving into the vertical dimension of elasmobranch movement ecology

  Science Advances · 2022 · 84 citations

  Knowledge of the three-dimensional movement patterns of elasmobranchs is vital to understand their ecological roles and exposure to anthropogenic pressures. To date, comparative studies among species at global scales have mostly focused on horizontal movements. Our study addresses the knowledge gap of vertical movements by compiling the first global synthesis of vertical habitat use by elasmobranchs from data obtained by deployment of 989 biotelemetry tags on 38 elasmobranch species. Elasmobranc…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Shark detection and classification with machine learning

  Ecological Informatics · 2022-05-16 · 31 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Environmental DNA helps reveal reef shark distribution across a remote archipelago

  Ecological Indicators · 2023-08-05 · 20 citations

  articleOpen access

  Environmental DNA (eDNA) methods are being increasingly used in proof-of-concept studies to detect shark species, many populations of which are experiencing severe declines. These methods are widely seen as the future of biodiversity monitoring, but they have yet to become established as routine monitoring techniques for elasmobranch species. Here, we developed species-specific quantitative PCR assays for the detection of grey reef shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos) and silvertip shark (Carcharh…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Barbara A. Block

  Stanford University

  143 shared

• Taylor K. Chapple

  107 shared

• Robert J. Schallert

  Pacific University

  102 shared

• Aaron B. Carlisle

  University of Delaware

  101 shared

• David J. Curnick

  98 shared

• David Tickler

  91 shared

• David Jacoby

  91 shared

• Michael J. Williamson

  Zoological Society of London

  79 shared

Labs

• SeaQL LabPI

Education

• PhD, Biology

  Dalhousie University

  2010

• MSc, Marine Science

  Politechnic University of Marche

  2003

Similar researchers at Virginia Tech

• Paul Angermeierh-69
• James (Jim) Fraserh-55
• William Hopkinsh-48