"Elasmobranchs, including sharks and rays, are sensitive to natural electric and magnetic fields used for navigation and prey detection, making them potentially vulnerable to anthropogenic EMFs as they may alter orientation, foraging or habitat use."
"Across 28 trials, time spent and distance travelled in each quadrant did not differ with EMF exposure and/or the presence of complex biogenic substrate."
"Hidden Markov models revealed subtle but significant changes in behavioural states (inactive, local activity, transit), where sharks were more inactive (+6%pt.) and less locally active (-5%pt.) in the EMF + mussel quadrant compared to the bare and EMF-only quadrants, and increased transiting behaviour (+6%pt.) in the mussel-only quadrant relative to the EMF + mussel quadrant."
"These findings show that S. canicula juveniles show no preference in substrate or alternating-current EMF exposure, but they did subtly change their behaviour. Future work should examine direct-current systems and field-based tracking and assess the extent to which these observations generalise to field settings and other elasmobranchs."
Shark preferences: Only subtle effects of electromagnetic field exposure and substrate type on small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) behaviour.
Bouwman LJ, Hermans A, Hubert J, Nijland R, Jansen H, Schotanus J (2026) Journal of Fish Biology Journal Level 1โ
