Wind forcing and fate of <i>Sardinella aurita</i> eggs and larvae in the Sicily Channel (Mediterranean Sea)

Abstract. Multidisciplinary studies are recently seeking to define diagnostic tools for fishery sustainability by coupling ichthyoplanktonic datasets, physical and bio-geochemical oceanographic measurements, and ocean modelling. The main goal of these efforts is the understanding of those processes that control fate and dispersion of fish larvae and eggs and thus tune the inter-annual variability of biomass of fish species. We here analyzed eggs and larvae distribution and biological features of Sardinella aurita in the northeast sector of the Sicily Channel (Mediterranean Sea) collected during the 2010 and 2011 summer cruises. We make use of satellite sea surface temperature, wind, and chl…

Multi-resolution anisotropy studies of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory

We report a multi-resolution search for anisotropies in the arrival directions of cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory with local zenith angles up to $80^\circ$ and energies in excess of 4 EeV ($4 \times 10^{18}$ eV). This search is conducted by measuring the angular power spectrum and performing a needlet wavelet analysis in two independent energy ranges. Both analyses are complementary since the angular power spectrum achieves a better performance in identifying large-scale patterns while the needlet wavelet analysis, considering the parameters used in this work, presents a higher efficiency in detecting smaller-scale anisotropies, potentially providing directional informa…

Planktonic stages of small pelagic fishes (Sardinella aurita and Engraulis encrasicolus) in the central Mediterranean Sea: The key role of physical forcings and implications for fisheries management.

Abstract Multidisciplinary studies are recently aiming to define diagnostic tools for fishery sustainability by coupling ichthyoplanktonic datasets, physical and bio-geochemical oceanographic measurements, and ocean modelling. The main goal of these efforts is to understand those processes that control the dispersion and fate of fish larvae and eggs, and thus tuning the inter-annual variability of the biomass of small pelagic fish species. In this paper we analyse the distribution of eggs and larvae as well as the biological features of the two species of pelagic fish, Engraulis encrasicolus and Sardinella aurita in the north-eastern sector of the Sicily Channel (Mediterranean Sea) from ich…

Larval fish assemblages in the central Mediterranean Sea: spatio spatio-temporal dynamics and biological effect on early life stage of Sardinella aurita (Pisces, Clupeidae)

Engraulis encrasicolus larvae from two different environmental spawning areas of the Central Mediterranean Sea: first data on amino acid profiles and biochemical evaluations

Early life stages of marine fish populations may be strongly affected by environmental factors. Changes in the physical environment or the availability of food resources could lead to stress-related physiological responses affecting larval fitness, growth and survival. In the present study, we determined, for the first time, amino acid composition (AAC), lipid, and carbohydrate content, as well as alkaline phosphatase and peroxidase activities in larvae from the European anchovy Engraulis encrasicolus. Fishes were caught in two different spawning areas of the Strait of Sicily, characterized by different environmental conditions, including a coastal upwelling with a lower temperature (Advent…