Preprint volume - SIBM

Pre-print Volume –Posters
NECTON AND FISHERY COMMITEE
A. INDENNIDATE, R. CARLUCCI, P. MAIORANO, L. SION, G. D’ONGHIA
Department of Animal and Environmental Biology, University of Bari, Via E. Orabona, 4 - 70125 Bari, Italia.
a.indennidate@biologia.uniba.it
FISHING EFFORT AND CATCH COMPOSITION ON THE BOUNDARIES
OF SANTA MARIA DI LEUCA DEEP-WATER CORAL BANK
SFORZO DI PESCA E COMPOSIZIONE DELLE CATTURE AI MARGINI
DEL BANCO A CORALLI PROFONDI DI SANTA MARIA DI LEUCA
Abstract - As part of EU-FP7 CoralFISH project, the “Observers’ Program” activity has been carried out
to investigate on the fishing effort and catch composition from longline and bottom trawl fishing carried out
near the Santa Maria di Leuca (SML) coral bank (North Western Ionian Sea).
Key-words: fishing effort, catch composition, deep-water coral reefs, Mediterranean.
Introduction - The Santa Maria di Leuca (SML) coral bank is characterized by living
Lophelia-Madrepora-bearing coral mounds, widespread in an area of about 900 km 2 ,
between 350 and 1100 m depth, in the northern Ionian Sea (southern Italy) (Taviani et
al., 2005, D’Onghia et al., 2010). The bank represents a Mediterranean deep-water
biodiversity “hotspot” (Mastrototaro et al., 2010) which could also play an important
role as nursery and spawning area for demersal species (D’Onghia et al., 2010). In this
work, information on fishing effort and catch composition observed on the boundaries
of this deep-water coral bank is provided.
Materials and methods - Data were collected from June to October 2009 within the
Observer Program, carried out in the framework of the EU-FP7 CoralFISH project.
Fishing effort and catch composition data were collected from longline and bottom
trawl. In particular, the following data were recorded: date and hour of fishing, set time
and number of hooks (if longliner), haul time (if trawler), sea-weather conditions;
fishing zone with indication of depth, latitude and longitude; catch composition (both
commercial and discard species) with number and weight; by-catch of corals and
sponges (and other invertebrates).
Results - Seven trawlers and one longliner usually fished on the boundaries of SML
deep-water coral bank. Both the number of fishing days per month (Tab. 1) and
geographic distribution of fishing hauls (Fig. 1) varied largely throughout the
investigated period according to the sea-weather conditions. Sometime trawlers fished
inside the northward limit of the coral area. Catches from trawling mostly consisted in
Merluccius merluccius, Illex coindetii, Aristaeomorpha foliacea and Aristeus
antennatus while those from longline were mainly made of Chelidonichthys lucerna,
M. merluccius and Conger conger (Fig. 2).
Tab. 1 - Fishing days per month and gear recorded in SML fishery during the “Observer Program”.
Giornate di pesca per mese e attrezzo registrate nella marineria di SML durante l’Observer
Program.
June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009
trawl net 32 (4) 46 (7) 29 (6) closed season 18 (3)
longline 16 (1) 12 (1) 8 (1) 15 (1) 5 (1)
* in brackets the number of recorded vessels.
41 st S.I.B.M. CONGRESS Rapallo (GE), 7-11 June 2010
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