Status of alien species in the Mediterranean and Black Sea

50
Beside the above mentioned countries, in Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, some lessepsian fish species are
found but caught only as by-catch and have no market value so far.
A success story of a lessepsian fish: the narrow-barred Spanish mackerel, Scomberomorus
commerson (Lacepede, 1800)
Among the alien fish species, the narrow-barred Spanish mackerel, Scomberomorus commerson
(Lacepede, 1800) is an epipelagic, neritic species, known to undertake lengthy coastal migrations
(Collette and Nauen, 1983). This species entered the Mediterranean where it was recorded in Palestine
in 1935 (Hornell, 1935). In the following years the species was found in Lebanon (George and
Athanassiou, 1965), Turkey (since 1981, in Gücü et al., 1994), and Aegean Sea (Buhan et al., 1997;
Golani et al., 2002). At present, fishery statistics show commercial quantities in Israel, Lebanon,
Egypt and Algeria. Commercial quantities are reported also for the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Shakman
and Kinzelbach, 2007) and a few specimens have been also recorded in Sicily. The maximum length
in the Mediterranean, 113 cm FL, was recorded in Turkish waters.
The only information existing in the Mediterranean was reported by Ogretmen et al. (2005) in the
Turkish waters. According to this information, the minimum, maximum and mean values of TL and
TW were 520 mm, 870 mm, 618 mm, and 1 050 g, 3 300 g, 1 553 g, respectively in Gulluk Bay and
Gokova Bay (South Aegean Sea) in November and December 1994. One large specimen, with a FL of
113 cm, was collected in Gulluk Bay.
Among all Mediterranean countries, only three countries declared the catch of this species (Algeria,
Egypt, and Israel; Figure 23). The largest catch has been declared by Algeria (499 tonnes) followed by
Egypt (309 tonnes). Israel has not declared any catch since 1992. The biggest catch in recent years was
reported by Egypt. New unpublished information from Lebanon gives a rough estimate on the catch of
this species, as about 30 tonnes in 2007 (Di Natale et al., 2009).
Tons
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005
Figure 23 – Catch of the narrow-barred Spanish mackerel from 1985 to 2005 for Algeria, Egypt and Israel
3.3.3 Evaluation of lessepsian crustaceans catch
Algeria Egypt Israel
Doğan et al. (2007a) reported that the following crustaceans have a commercial importance in the
Turkish Aegean and Mediteranean Seas: Fenneropenaeus merguiensis, Marsupenaeus japonicus,
Melicertus hathor, Metapenaeus monoceros, Metapenaeus stebbingi, Penaeus semisulcatus,
Callinectes sapidus and Portunus pelagicus. Geldiay and Kocatas (1972) reported that in the