The team

Apex Predators Principal Investigator

+972 52 3571193

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Project: Marine Apex Predators

Academic Education:

Background:

I was born in 1972, marry happily to Shani and we have 4 daughthers, living in Rehovot, Israel. Apart from the Academic career which I devote mainly to marine conservation science, I am involved with many conservational and environmental bodies. I have been a member of the scientific committee of ACCOBAMS, I am currently a member of IWC Strandings Expert Panel Committee, I am elected member of ECS council  for a second tenure as Vice Chairperson, I am elected board member in the Israeli Life & Environment Organization. I also believe in long term processes and bringing the magic of the oceans to the school children, so I have created the Dolphin & Sea Center, an Educational center based in Ashdod. This center operates under Delphis NGO created for the conservation of marine mammals in Israel which I was one of the founders. My romance with the sea has start in the coastal city of Ashkelon where I was born, letter on a long military service in the Navy, as naval officer with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. I was a yacht skipper instructor in Sea-Gal sailing club. And I am very proud of being the Head of Tel-Aviv for Bike (NGO) in 1998, where we successfully brought the project of creating bike tracks in Tel-Aviv boulevards into existence and later on turning Tel Aviv to the city of Bike in Israel.

Current Research:

Currently I am the Head of Marine Apex predator Lab which specializes in conservation, behavioral science, and long-term ecological research of coastal dolphins, coastal sharks, rays, bluefin tuna. We are continuously engaged in developing new sampling protocols and indicators for pelagic megafauna. Emphasis is placed on the function of these species as sentinels of the marine environment and their ability to inform us about human perturbations. We employ photogrammetric measurements using drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), both active and passive acoustic surveying techniques, mark-recapture methods, underwater observations, and cutting-edge technologies for molecular and stable isotope analyses, e-DNA and microbiome. Apex predators are important for maintaining the integrity of ecosystems, yet there exists a huge knowledge gap on these predators of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea which we plan to overcome.

Recent Publications:

Lampert, Y.; Berzak, R.; Davidovich, N.; Diamant, A.; Stern, N.; Scheinin,A.P.; Tchernov, D.; Morick, D. Indigenous versus Lessepsian Hosts: Nervous Necrosis Virus (NNV) in Eastern Mediterranean Sea Fish. Viruses 2020, 12(4), 430;
https://doi.org/10.3390/v12040430.

Morick, D.; Davidovich, N.; Bigal, E.; Rosenbluth, E.; Bouznach, A.; Rokney, A.; Ron, M.; Wosnick, N.; Tchernov, D.; Scheinin, A.P. Fatal Infection in a Wild Sandbar Shark (Carcharhinus plumbeus), Caused by Streptococcus agalactiae, Type Ia-ST7. Animals 2020, 10, 284.

Brand, D., Edelist D., Goffman O., Hadar N., Scheinin A. Kerem D. Common dolphins, common in neritic waters off southern Israel, demonstrate uncommon dietary habits. Aquatic Conserv: Mar Freshw Ecosyst. 2019;1–7. https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.3165

Zemah Shamir, Z. Zemah Shamir, S. Tchernov, D., Scheinin A., Becker N. (2019). Shark aggregation and tourism: opportunities and challenges of an emerging phenomenon, International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 406-414.

Barash, A., Pickholtz, R., Nativ, H., Malamud, S., Scheinin, A., & Tchernov, D. (2018). Seasonal arrival and feeding of injured coastal sharks at fish farms in the Eastern Mediterranean. Journal of the Black Sea/Mediterranean Environment, 24(1), 86-90.

Diamant, R., Bigal, E., Pinhasi, A., Scheinin, A., (2018). Estimation of Shark’s biomass through active acoustics. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 144, 1912.

Bigal, E., Morick, D., Scheinin, A. , Salant, H., Berkowitz, A., King, R., Levy, Y., Melero, M., Sanchez-Vizcaino, J., Goffman, O., Hadar, N., Roditi-Elasar, M., Tchernov, D. (2018). Detection of Toxoplasma gondii in three common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus); a first description from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. 258, 74-78.

Levy, D., Belfer, Y., Osherov, E., Bigal, E., Scheinin, A. , Nativ, H., Tchernov, D., Treibitz, T., (2018). Automated analysis of marine video with limited data. CVPR,       Workshop on automated analysis of marine video for environmental         monitoring.

Mannocci L., Roberts J.J., Scheinin A, et Al. (2018) Assessing cetacean surveys throughout the Mediterranean Sea: a gap analysis in environmental space. Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 3126

Notarbartolo di Sciara G., Kerem D., Scheinin A.  et al. (2017). Cetaceans of the Red Sea. CMS Technical Series 33, 86 p.