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Fisheries are among the sectors hardest-hit by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) crisis due to the sudden decrease in the demand for seafood. This study employs demand-driven and supply-driven input-output models to conduct an economy-wide assessment of the contraction of the fisheries activities in Cyprus, as well as a questionnaire survey to reveal fishermen&rsquo, s perceptions of COVID-19 crisis impacts. The results at the macroeconomic level reveal that the contraction in the economic output of the fisheries sector does not have any significant impact on the wider economy due to the small size of the sector. However, the COVID-19 crisis has major negative effects on fishermen&rsquo, s income and the livelihoods of fishers&rsquo, households. The average gross margin of the interviewed fishermen for March 2020, i.e., the month where a national quarantine and lockdown was imposed, was four times less the average monthly gross margin for the winter period (December 2019&ndash, February 2020) and 2.5 times less compared to the average monthly gross margin of 2019. The recessionary impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in conjunction with the chronic challenges that fisheries are currently facing in Cyprus, negatively affect the viability of the sector.

The deep-sea of the Levantine Mediterranean basin is still a fairly undiscovered world. The outer insular shelf of Cyprus, a gateway to the deep realm, is not an exception, as very few deep areas in the waters surrounding this island have been explored up to now. Here we present a brief overview of the discovery of an extraordinary population of the scleractinian Dendrophyllia ramea at depths, substrate and densities which were previously unknown for this species. Our efforts in better defining the habitat of this unique and fragile coral population, along with solid evidence of alarming destruction (albeit unintentional) from fishing activity, will hopefully urge local authorities into enforcing protection/conservation measures.

The island of Cyprus has been divided since 1974 into the Turkish Cypriot north and the Greek Cypriot south. Here, we have reconstructed the total marine fishery removals for the island in its entirety, and then for each side. Cyprus’s total marine fisheries catches were reconstructed for the 1950–2010 time period by estimating all fishery removals, including unreported commercial, subsistence and recreational catches, and major discards. These estimates were added to the ‘officially reported’ data, as represented by data submitted by countries to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Such data were submitted by the south, but were absent from the north for years following the 1974 partitioning of the island. The total reconstructed catch for 1950–2010 was nearly 243,000 t, which is 2.6 times the 93,200 t officially reported by FAO on behalf of Cyprus. The unreported components consisted of nearly 57,000 t of large-scale commercial landings, 43,000 t of small-scale commercial landings, 11,000 t each for recreational and subsistence landings and nearly 28,000 t of discards. Improving the accuracy of fishery statistics by accounting for all removals is fundamental for better understanding fisheries resource use thus increasing the opportunities for sustainable development through enhancing fisheries management capacity.

The spatial effects of 2 tuna farms on the benthic community were investigated in the Eastern Mediterranean during the fattening period. The impact on benthic fauna was assessed in the vicinity of the fish farms (beneath and at various distances from the cages) using a variety of benthic indicators used for the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). There was a general consensus that most of the samples (95%) were acceptable, i.e. of 'good' or 'high' ecological status. The biotic indices were also compared between 2 different mesh sizes, total (resulting from the sum of the fractions of 1 and 0.5 mm mesh fractions) and 1 mm mesh, in order to assess the variability of the results. The indicators showed the same pattern between the 2 different sieve mesh sizes. The variability in the ecological status assigned by each indicator was also examined among the replicates taken from each station. Our results showed that one repli- cate is not sufficient for monitoring purposes, and we suggest obtaining more replicates while using indicators requiring less taxonomic effort for sample processing. Neither fish farm had a sig- nificant impact on benthic communities, due mainly to the exposed nature of the study site.

Artificial reefs, in the Eastern Mediterranean (Cyprus,) became a popular and frequently used tool, in fisheries and biodiversity conservation management. Even though evaluation studies about the efficacy of artificial reefs are plentiful in the rest of the Mediterranean (Central and Western), in the Eastern Basin they are largely absent. As the Eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea is characterised by unique physical parameters, the necessity to study artificial reefs under these contrasting regimes increases. The epibenthic communities of two unintentional artificial reefs (modern shipwrecks) in Cyprus (Zenobia) and Lebanon (Alice-B) were evaluated in 2010. Both shipwrecks are at similar depth, type of sea bottom, made of the same material (steel) and were sunk approximately the same period of time. However, Alice-B shipwreck off the coast of Lebanon is constantly exposed to higher levels of nutrients than Zenobia in Cyprus. Significant dissimilarities were observed in the composition, percentage of benthic cover of predominant taxonomic groups and development of the epibenthic communities. Differences in physical and chemical parameters between sides lay mainly in the nutrient and thermal regimes affecting the shipwrecks and most likely bring about the differences in the observed community structure. The results of this study suggest that epibenthic communities could be highly impacted by eutrophication caused by anthropogenic activities, leading to less biodiverse communities dominated by specific species that are favoured by the eutrophic conditions.