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The spot-fin porcupinefish, Diodon hystrix Linnaeus, 1758, was first recorded in the Mediterranean by Torchio (1963), from the Gulf of Taranto, Italy. There have been no subsequent records, from this sea, ever since. In this paper, we report a new record of D. hystrix from the Balearic Islands, western Mediterranean, fifty-five years after the first record. The fish individual was caught during a spearfishing competition. The social networks and the WhatsApp instantaneous messenger proved to be useful tools for the rapid contact with the scientists who are now reporting this record. In view of the fast growth and spreading of other populations of exotic species in the Mediterranean, fostering the communication between recreational fishers and scientists through these types of digital tools could help in monitoring of the natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Western Mediterranean Sea, forage fishes have changed in abundance, body condition, growth, reproduction, and distribution in the last decades. Different hypotheses have been proposed to explain these changes, including increase in fishing mortality; changes in environmental conditions affecting species fitness, and planktonic productivity and quality; recovery of top predators; and increase in competitors. We investigated the main drivers and changes of the pelagic ecosystem and their effects using an ecosystem-based modelling approach. Specifically, we (1) quantified the potential historical contribution of various drivers of change, (2) investigated changes in temporal trends and spatial distributions of main ecosystem components, and (3) identified ecological consequences of these changes in top predator and competitors, their fisheries and ecosystem traits during 2000-2020. We updated an established Ecopath food-web model representing the Spanish and French Mediterranean sub-areas (GSA06 and GSA07) in 2000 with recent available data. We applied the temporal dynamic Ecosim module, and tested historical time series of fishing effort, fishing mortality and environmental factors as potential drivers. Observed biomass and landings of key species were used to validate model projections. A spatial-temporal Ecospace model was developed to project species distribution changes. Results showed historical biomass and catch changes driven by a combination of high fishing pressure and environmental change (i.e. increase in temperature and salinity, and decline in primary productivity). Small pelagic fish showed significant temporal changes and predicted shifts in their distributions, following a latitudinal gradient. Predators and competitors showed changes as well, displaying heterogeneous spatial patterns, while fisheries landings declined. Overall, results matched observations (e.g., decline of sardine, fluctuations of anchovy and increases in bluefin tuna) and illustrated the need to complement traditional assessments with integrative frameworks to move towards an ecosystem-based approach in the Mediterranean. They also highlighted important knowledge gaps to guide future research in the region., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest Marta Coll reports financial support was provided by European Commission. Marta Coll reports a relationship with European Commission that includes: funding grants., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

iEcology and conservation culturomics are two emerging research approaches that rely on digital data for studying ecological patterns and human-nature interactions. We applied data mining of videos published on YouTube related to recreational fishing of four species of groupers (family: Epinephelidae) in Italy between 2011 and 2017 to learn whether digital user-supplied data help uncover key spatio-temporal ecological patterns characteristic of the studied species. Our results support an ontogenetic deepening of the dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus) as revealed by a positive relationship between body mass and depth of captures declared in spearfishing videos. In addition, the data support a northward expansion of the white grouper (Epinephelus aeneus) because the average latitude associated to the catch was found to be positively correlated with the years when the videos were uploaded on YouTube. Furthermore, the georeferenced data about the white grouper filled a knowledge gap in a well-established international occurrence records dataset. The approach presented here could help mitigating data deficiencies and inform about harvesting patterns shown by recreational anglers and spearfishers. Our work illustrates the value of digital data associated with recreational fishing for advancing fish and fisheries research. The approach can be broadened to larger spatial and temporal scales, and to different species, contributing to a better understanding of macroecological patterns, assessment and conservation of exploited species, and monitoring of recreational fisheries., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Climate change and biological invasions are rapidly reshuffling species distribution, restructuring the biological communities of many ecosystems worldwide. Tracking these transformations in the marine environment is crucial, but our understanding of climate change effects and invasive species dynamics is often hampered by the practical challenge of surveying large geographical areas. Here, we focus on the Mediterranean Sea, a hot spot for climate change and biological invasions to investigate recent spatiotemporal changes in fish abundances and distribution. To this end, we accessed the local ecological knowledge (LEK) of small-scale and recreational fishers, reconstructing the dynamics of fish perceived as "new" or increasing in different fishing areas. Over 500 fishers across 95 locations and nine different countries were interviewed, and semiquantitative information on yearly changes in species abundance was collected. Overall, 75 species were mentioned by the respondents, mostly warm-adapted species of both native and exotic origin. Respondents belonging to the same biogeographic sectors described coherent spatial and temporal patterns, and gradients along latitudinal and longitudinal axes were revealed. This information provides a more complete understanding of the shifting distribution of Mediterranean fishes and it also demonstrates that adequately structured LEK methodology might be applied successfully beyond the local scale, across national borders and jurisdictions. Acknowledging this potential through macroregional coordination could pave the way for future large-scale aggregations of individual observations, increasing our potential for integrated monitoring and conservation planning at the regional or even global level. This might help local communities to better understand, manage, and adapt to the ongoing biotic transformations driven by climate change and biological invaders., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Radio frequency identification (RFID) devices are currently used to quantify several traits of animal behaviour with potential applications for the study of marine organisms. To date, behavioural studies with marine organisms are rare because of the technical difficulty of propagating radio waves within the saltwater medium. We present a novel RFID tracking system to study the burrowing behaviour of a valuable fishery resource, the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus L.). The system consists of a network of six controllers, each handling a group of seven antennas. That network was placed below a microcosm tank that recreated important features typical of Nephrops' grounds, such as the presence of multiple burrows. The animals carried a passive transponder attached to their telson, operating at 13.56 MHz. The tracking system was implemented to concurrently report the behaviour of up to three individuals, in terms of their travelled distances in a specified unit of time and their preferential positioning within the antenna network. To do so, the controllers worked in parallel to send the antenna data to a computer via a USB connection. The tracking accuracy of the system was evaluated by concurrently recording the animals' behaviour with automated video imaging. During the two experiments, each lasting approximately one week, two different groups of three animals each showed a variable burrow occupancy and a nocturnal displacement under a standard photoperiod regime (12 h light:12 h dark), measured using the RFID method. Similar results were obtained with the video imaging. Our implemented RFID system was therefore capable of efficiently tracking the tested organisms and has a good potential for use on a wide variety of other marine organisms of commercial, aquaculture, and ecological interest.