Using Kinship to Investigate Population Status and Reproductive Behaviour of Largetooth Sawfish

Sawfishes are highly threatened globally; however, we know very little about their basic biology due to the difficulty of locating and studying these rare animals. This study uses state-of-the-art genetic techniques to assess kinship (sibling and parental pairings) for nearly 300 juvenile sawfish caught in north-western Australia over the last two decades, providing critical life-history information about this species to assist with proper fisheries and resource management in the region.