“Insights into the visitations of oceanic manta rays at cleaning stations on coral reefs in the Bird’s Head Seascape, eastern Indonesia” by Edy Setyawan, Ronald Manbrasar, Abraham Sianipar, Abdy Hasan, Mochamad Putra, Imanuel Tofu, Calvin Beale, and Mark Erdmann is a research paper recently published in Frontiers, one of the world’s largest and most impactful research publishers, dedicated to making peer-reviewed, quality-certified science openly accessible.

Study Overview:

A comprehensive understanding of the movements and habitat use of marine megafauna is critical to the success of efforts to conserve and manage them. The oceanic manta ray Mobula birostris, which was recently uplisted to Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, is distributed circumglobally in tropical to temperate waters. Oceanic manta rays are believed to spend significantly more time in the open ocean than in coastal areas. Nonetheless, the Bird’s Head Seascape in eastern Indonesia hosts a large population of this species (over 850 individuals), frequently sighted at coral reef cleaning stations and forming a vital asset for marine tourism in the region. Despite this, detailed understanding of the movements and habitat use of this wide-ranging species within shallow (<30 m) coral reef ecosystems remains limited. Addressing this knowledge gap is urgently required for the sustainable management of oceanic manta ray-focused tourism in the region. Here, we report the results of an initial passive acoustic telemetry study investigating the use of coral reef cleaning stations by oceanic manta rays.

Read the study here!