CANBERRA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Australian scientists will collect DNA from whale sharks this week in an attempt to find out more about the life and behavior of the world's largest fish species.
A team from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) will collect the samples on Friday, the World Oceans Day, in an expedition to Ningaloo Reef, in northern Western Australia.
The landmark move could unlock the secrets of whale shark behavior, such as where they travel and how deep they go.
Ahead of the mission, CSIRO Senior Scientist Dr Richard Pillans explained that by taking genetic samples from whale sharks, the team would be able to estimate their population on the western coast of Australia and the eastern Indian Ocean.
"We will also be using satellite tags to track where the whale sharks go to gain insight into their behavior," Pillans said on Friday.
"Previous tagging has revealed whale sharks travelling south to Perth and others have been located as far as the Gulf of Carpentaria, 3,500 km away," he said.
"We have also discovered a whale shark travelling as deep as 1.8 kms."
The elusive and unpredictable whale sharks are attracted to Ningaloo Reef for their natural diet of plankton, and form part of the reef's diverse marine ecosystem.
The investigation is part of a 4.1-million-USD research partnership between CSIRO with the BHP Billiton Foundation that includes turtle tagging, coral reef surveys in deep and shallow water and marine debris assessment.
By undergoing deep and shallow reef studies, and monitoring turtle and shark populations, CSIRO researchers have been quantifying marine debris found at the reef.
