Editorially curated · qa-whale-shark-research-edna
Qatar Whale Shark Research Project
A long-term study of Qatar's exceptionally large seasonal whale-shark aggregation using photo-identification, satellite tracking, tissue/DNA sampling and seawater eDNA; genomics papers demonstrated population inference from mitochondrial and genome-scale target capture of environmental DNA.
01 / Project overview
What the record establishes.
- Geographic scope
- Al Shaheen region and northeastern offshore waters of Qatar
- Project type
- longitudinal wildlife monitoring project with conservation-genomics and eDNA components
- Research domain
- marine conservation, population genetics and environmental DNA
- Years
- 2010–
- Lifecycle status
- active or recurrent monitoring program
- Status basis
- Visit Qatar's current wildlife page continues to describe the project and its database, while annual whale-shark monitoring and viewing activity remained documented in 2025-2026.
- Status evidence date
- 2026-08-15
- Scale
- More than 600 individually identified whale sharks in the project database, with aggregations of up to roughly 300 animals; eDNA studies recovered aggregation-level mitochondrial haplotypes and later genome-scale target-capture data from Qatar seawater.
02 / Organizations and population
Who and what the project connects.
- Lead organizations
- Qatar Ministry of Environment
- Partner organizations
- Maersk Oil Qatar · Heriot-Watt University · University of Copenhagen · Natural History Museum of Denmark · NAUI research divers
- Organism / population
- whale shark (Rhincodon typus) aggregation and associated marine environmental DNA
03 / Data and access
What exists and how it can be reached.
Data types
- photo-identification
- satellite telemetry
- tissue DNA
- seawater environmental DNA
- mitochondrial sequencing
- target-capture sequencing
- population genetics
Data access
Summary statistics and methods are published; the photo-ID database and underlying project samples are not documented as open access.
Identifiers
No public accession or identifier is listed for this record.
04 / Evidence and provenance
Why the record is included.
Inclusion basis
Named, longitudinal, multi-animal national monitoring resource with explicit tissue-DNA and reusable seawater-eDNA population-genomics outputs.
Editorial note
Genomics is one component of a broader ecological monitoring project. The current official page does not state a formal operational end date or expose the underlying identification database.
Sources
- primary record source Verified 2026-08-15
- additional record source Verified 2026-08-15
- additional record source Verified 2026-08-15
- additional record source Verified 2026-08-15
- additional record source Verified 2026-08-15
Release v0.2.0