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This paper reports recent developments in Rapfish, a normative, scalable and flexible rapid appraisal technique that integrates both ecological and human dimensions to evaluate the status of fisheries in reference to a norm or goal. Appraisal status targets may be sustainability, compliance with a standard (such as the UN code of conduct for responsible fisheries) or the degree of progress in meeting some other goal or target. The method combines semi-quantitative ( e.g. ecological) and qualitative ( e.g. social) data via multiple evaluation fields, each of which is assessed through scores assigned to six to 12 attributes or indicators: the scoring method allows user flexibility to adopt a wide range of utility relationships. For assessing sustainability, six evaluation fields have been developed: ecological, technological, economic, social, ethical and institutional. Each field can be assessed directly with a set of scored attributes, or several of the fields can be dealt with in greater detail using nested subfields that themselves comprise multidimensional Rapfish assessments ( e.g. the hierarchical institutional field encompasses both governance and management, including a detailed analysis of legality). The user has the choice of including all or only some of the available sustainability fields. For the attributes themselves, there will rarely be quantitative data, but scoring allows these items to be estimated. Indeed, within a normative framework, one important advantage with Rapfish is transparency of the rigour, quality and replicability of the scores. The Rapfish technique employs a constrained multidimensional ordination that is scaled to situate data points within evaluation space. Within each evaluation field, results may be presented as a two-dimensional plot or in a one-dimensional rank order. Uncertainty is expressed through the probability distribution of Monte-Carlo simulations that use the c.l. on each original observation. Overall results of the multidisciplinary analysis may be shown using kite diagrams that compare different locations, time periods (including future projections) and management scenarios, which make policy trade-offs explicit. These enhancements are now available in the R programming language and on an open website, where users can run Rapfish analyses by downloading the software or uploading their data to a user interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports recent developments in Rapfish, a normative, scalable and flexible rapid appraisal technique that integrates both ecological and human dimensions to evaluate the status of fisheries in reference to a norm or goal. Appraisal status targets may be sustainability, compliance with a standard (such as the UN code of conduct for responsible fisheries) or the degree of progress in meeting some other goal or target. The method combines semi-quantitative ( e.g. ecological) and qualitative ( e.g. social) data via multiple evaluation fields, each of which is assessed through scores assigned to six to 12 attributes or indicators: the scoring method allows user flexibility to adopt a wide range of utility relationships. For assessing sustainability, six evaluation fields have been developed: ecological, technological, economic, social, ethical and institutional. Each field can be assessed directly with a set of scored attributes, or several of the fields can be dealt with in greater detail using nested subfields that themselves comprise multidimensional Rapfish assessments ( e.g. the hierarchical institutional field encompasses both governance and management, including a detailed analysis of legality). The user has the choice of including all or only some of the available sustainability fields. For the attributes themselves, there will rarely be quantitative data, but scoring allows these items to be estimated. Indeed, within a normative framework, one important advantage with Rapfish is transparency of the rigour, quality and replicability of the scores. The Rapfish technique employs a constrained multidimensional ordination that is scaled to situate data points within evaluation space. Within each evaluation field, results may be presented as a two-dimensional plot or in a one-dimensional rank order. Uncertainty is expressed through the probability distribution of Monte-Carlo simulations that use the c.l. on each original observation. Overall results of the multidisciplinary analysis may be shown using kite diagrams that compare different locations, time periods (including future projections) and management scenarios, which make policy trade-offs explicit. These enhancements are now available in the R programming language and on an open website, where users can run Rapfish analyses by downloading the software or uploading their data to a user interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work aims at characterising the seamount physiography and biology in the OSPAR Convention limits (North-East Atlantic Ocean) and Mediterranean Sea. We first inferred potential abundance, location and morphological characteristics of seamounts, and secondly, summarized the existing biological, geological and oceanographic in-situ research, identifying examples of well-studied seamounts. Our study showed that the seamount population in the OSPAR area (North-East Atlantic) and in Mediterranean Sea is large with around 1061 and 202 seamount-like features, respectively. Similarly, seamounts occupy large areas of about 1 116 000 km² in the OSPAR region and of about 184 000 km² in the Mediterranean Sea, which is much larger than previously thought. The presence of seamounts in the North-East Atlantic has been known since the late 19th Century but overall knowledge regarding seamount ecology and geology is still relatively poor. Only 37 seamounts in the OSPAR area (3.5% of all seamounts in the region), 22 in the Mediterranean Sea (9.2% of all seamounts in the region) and 25 in the North-East Atlantic south of the OSPAR have in-situ information. Seamounts mapped in both areas are in general very heterogeneous, showing diverse geophysical characteristics. These differences will likely affect the biological diversity and production of resident and associated organisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starch gel electrophoresis of allozymes was used to investigate the genetic stock structure of European anchovies (Engraulis encrasicolus L.) in the northern Mediterranean area. Twenty-four putative enzyme-coding loci were examined in 634 fish, constituting 13 samples caught in the Adriatic, Tyrrhenian, Ionian, and Aegean seas, the Sicilian Channel and the Bay of Biscay, between March 1993 and May 1994. Eight loci were monomorphic in all samples, eight were weakly polymorphic (p=0.99), and a further eight exhibited common allele frequencies <0.95 (p=0.95). Over 99% of tests indicated that genotypic proportions were in accordance with Hardy-Weinberg predictions. Average mean unbiased heterogeneity per locus (HL) was 0.055 and the effective mean number of alleles per locus was 1.17. Genetic distance between samples was low (maximum Nei's D=0.009). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]