Frontiers in Marine Science (Oct 2015)
Incidental spawning of some scombrids in Adriatic or not?
Abstract
During routine monitoring of commercial purse seine catches in 2011, 87 fingerling specimens of scombrids were collected in the southern Adriatic Sea. Sequencing of mitochondrial control region locus inferred that specimens belonged to the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus (Linnaeus, 1758) (N=29), bullet tuna, Auxis rochei (Risso, 1810) (N=30) and little tunny, Euthynnus alletteratus, Rafinesque, 1810 (N=28). Due to previously published growth parameters, age of collected specimens was estimated to be approximately 30 days. In order to determine possible location of the spawning event coupled modelling system ROMS-ICHTHYOP was run. Realistic ROMS simulations were made to provide current and density fields for the ICHTHYOP model. ROMS model was forced with realistic surface air-sea fluxes calculated from fine resolution ALADIN model, river inflows, tides and external dynamics. ICHTHYOP was run in the backward mode for 30 days using published investigations on the studied species and its early stage dynamics, such as their growth and developmental stage thermal dependence, lethal temperatures, etc. Apart simulations with coupled modelling system, detailed analysis of prevailing meteorological and oceanographic conditions was made using all available data. Comparison to climatology of the area approved that 2011 had unusually prolonged warm and dry summer season. Occasional inflows of hot and dry air from the northern Africa additionally warm up Adriatic atmosphere. Under these conditions sea surface temperature was up to 2 standard deviations above normal. In the deeper layers, high temperature and salinity were recorded. According to performed simulations it seems that tuna species spawn within the commercial tuna cages (this is not the first evidence of natural spawning within commercial tuna farming facility in the Adriatic), while the other two species most probably opportunistically use positive environmental (abiotic and biotic) conditions and spawn in the same area.
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