Seafish

Mangroves are a critical habitat that provide a suite of ecosystem services and support livelihoods. Here we undertook a global analysis to model the density and abundance of 37 commercially important juvenile fish and juvenile and resident invertebrates that are known to extensively use mangroves, by fitting expert-identified drivers of density to fish and invertebrate density data from published field studies. The numerical model predicted high densities throughout parts of Southeast and South Asia, the northern coast of South America, the Red Sea, and the Caribbean and Central America. Application of our model globally estimates that mangroves support an annual abundance of over 700 billion juvenile fish and invertebrates. While abundance at the early life-history stage does not directly equate to potential economic or biomass gains, this estimate indicates the critical role of mangroves globally in supporting fish and fisheries, and further builds the case for their conservation and restoration.

The EU aquaculture industry is a politically prioritized industry as shown in the EU's Farm to Fork Strategy. The political objectives include biological, economic and social sustainability of the industry. However, while a lot of attention has been paid to the economic importance and environmental impact from the aquaculture sector, there has been less focus on the social dimension. This paper contributes to the development of the social dimension by providing a baseline of the employment structure in the EU aquaculture sector. This is done by producing the first coherent overview of the employment in the sector presenting demographic information on gender, age, education and nationality. Data are further provided by country, by production technology, and by sector (marine, fresh water, shellfish). The results show that the sector is dominated by employees that are citizens of the same country as they are employed, are male, are between 40 and 64 years old, and have a low to medium level of education.

<p>Marine sediments deposited in response to the Neogene opening of the Red Sea during divergence of the African-Arabian plate margin provide micropalaeontological chronological evidence to calibrate synchronous palaeoenvironmental events from the Gulf of Suez to the Gulf of Aden. This facility provides insights to the timing and relative rates of tectonic subsidence associated with the rifting episodes of the region. Biostratigraphic index forms include planktonic and benthonic foraminifera and calcareous nannofossils. These, combined with various associated microfossils and macrofossil fragments, permit interpretation of a range of depositional environments that span intertidal to bathyal regimes. Onset and recovery from various hypersaline events are similarly interpreted by integrating microfossils and lithology. Following an episode of emergence and sporadic volcanicity, subsidence and the first Neogene marine transgression created brackish to shallow marine lagoons during the Early Miocene (Foraminiferal Letter Stage Upper Te). Rapid subsidence and accumulation of deep marine mudstones, of local hydrocarbon source-rock quality, with thinly interbedded siliciclastic and calciclastic debris flows commenced in the Early Miocene (Planktonic foraminiferal zones N5-N8; Nannofossil zones NN3-NN5). The debris flows increased in abundance and provide good hydrocarbon reservoirs. The Gulf of Suez and Red Sea experienced episodic isolation from the Indian Ocean during the latest Early Miocene and earliest Middle Miocene (Planktonic foraminiferal zones N8-N9; Nannofossil zone NN5 Foraminiferal Letter Stage Middle-Upper Tf1), resulting in hypersaline events with precipitation of submarine gypsum and halite. The isolation is attributed to constriction of the southern Red Sea, in the vicinity of the Bab El Mandab Straits, by eustatic sea level fall as well as probable tectonic activity; the synchronous Gulf of Aden succession does not display evidence for such hypersaline events. A prolonged hypersaline phase extended over most of the Middle Miocene, for which absence of biostratigraphic data precludes age control. During the latest Middle Miocene to Late Miocene, rejuvenation of the hinterland cause rapid deposition of terrestrial and fluviatile coarse and fine siliciclastics, with similar biostratigraphic paucity except for rare diatoms and palynomorphs. Renewed subsidence, associated with opening of the Aqaba Fault, combined with eustatic sea level rise caused marine deposition to recommence in the Pliocene.</p>

With increasing interest in the use of triploid salmon in commercial aquaculture, gaining an understanding of how economically important pathogens affect triploid stocks is important. To compare the susceptibility of diploid and triploid Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) to viral pathogens, fry were experimentally infected with Salmonid alphavirus sub-type 1 (SAV1), the aetiological agent of pancreas disease (PD) affecting Atlantic salmon aquaculture in Europe. Three groups of fry were exposed to the virus via different routes of infection: intraperitoneal injection (IP), bath immersion, or cohabitation (co-hab) and untreated fry were used as a control group. Mortalities commenced in the co-hab challenged diploid and triploid fish from 11 days post infection (dpi), and the experiment was terminated at 17 dpi. Both diploid and triploid IP challenged groups had similar levels of cumulative mortality at the end of the experimental period (41.1% and 38.9% respectively), and these were significantly higher (p < 0.01) than for the other challenge routes. A TaqMan-based quantitative PCR was used to assess SAV load in the heart, a main target organ of the virus, and also liver, which does not normally display any pathological changes during clinical infections, but exhibited severe degenerative lesions in the present study. The median viral RNA copy number was higher in diploid fish compared to triploid fish in both the heart and the liver of all three challenged groups. However, a significant statistical difference (p < 0.05) was only apparent in the liver of the co-hab groups. Diploid fry also displayed significantly higher levels of pancreatic and myocardial degeneration than triploids. This study showed that both diploid and triploid fry are susceptible to experimental SAV1 infection. The lower virus load seen in the triploids compared to the diploids may possibly be related to differences in cell metabolism between the two groups, however, further investigation is necessary to confirm this and also to assess the outcome of PD outbreaks in other developmental stages of the fish when maintained in commercial production systems.

The sea lamprey, Petromyzon marinus, is emerging as a model organism for understanding how pheromones can be used for manipulating vertebrate behavior in an integrated pest management program. In a previous study, a synthetic sex pheromone component 7α,12α, 24-trihydroxy-5α-cholan-3-one 24-sulfate (3kPZS) was applied to sea lamprey traps in eight streams at a final in-stream concentration of 10(-12) M. Application of 3kPZS increased sea lamprey catch, but where and when 3kPZS had the greatest impact was not determined. Here, by applying 3kPZS to additional streams, we determined that overall increases in yearly exploitation rate (proportion of sea lampreys that were marked, released, and subsequently recaptured) were highest (20-40%) in wide streams (~40 m) with low adult sea lamprey abundance (<1000). Wide streams with low adult abundance may be representative of low-attraction systems for adult sea lamprey and, in the absence of other attractants (larval odor, sex pheromone), sea lamprey may have been more responsive to a partial sex pheromone blend emitted from traps. Furthermore, we found that the largest and most consistent responses to 3kPZS were during nights early in the trapping season, when water temperatures were increasing. This may have occurred because, during periods of increasing water temperatures, sea lamprey become more active and males at large may not have begun to release sex pheromone. In general, our results are consistent with those for pheromones of invertebrates, which are most effective when pest density is low and when pheromone competition is low.