Marine biodiversity monitoring in the Mediterranean’s increasingly threatened ecosystems is crucial for effective ecosystem conservation and management. Here, we leveraged the Mediterranean International Trawl Survey program (MEDITS) to implement eDNA sampling through the recently tested ‘metaprobe’ procedure and characterize fish assemblages in three separate areas off the Italian coasts: Northern Adriatic Sea (NoAS), Liguria...

In the Mediterranean Sea, the blackbellied angler, Lophius budegassa Spinola, 1807, represents a relevant fraction of the commercial by-catch of bottom trawling and small-scale fisheries that use passive gears (e.g., set nets, bottom longlines, etc.). Despite its importance, there are no comprehensive studies on the population dynamics of this species, and there is still scarce and scattered knowledge of its biology and ecolog...

Three specimens of Silver John dory, Zenopsis conchifer, (Lowe, 1852) were observed for the first time in the Ligurian Sea and northern Tyrrhenian Sea (western Mediterranean), one in 2020 and two in 2021. This is the fifth record (up to ten individuals) of Z. conchifer in the Mediterranean Sea, which occurred 11 years after the last observation in 2010 in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea. The present study reports the northernmost...

In the Mediterranean, experiments and technical measures aimed at improving the selectivity of bottom trawl nets mostly concern modifications to the codend. Grids have been tested in various areas, but have not been adopted for management purposes so far. The present study aims to evaluate whether the adoption of diamond meshes turned by 90° (T90 configuration) and a selection grid with 2 cm bar spacing, both placed in the ext...

Among the main measures adopted to reduce anthropogenic impacts on elasmobranch communities, understanding the ecology of deep-sea sharks is of paramount importance, especially for potentially vulnerable species highly represented in the bycatch composition of commercial fisheries such as the blackmouth catshark Galeus melastomus . In the present work, we unravelled the first indication of population genetic structure of G. me...

The presence of plastic waste in the marine environment has driven the scientific community to make significant efforts to study and mitigate its possible effects. One of the critical aspects is to determine if and how an increase in ingestion events may occur as a result of the accumulation of plastic waste on the seabed. In this study, G. melastomus is examined for its ability to indirectly provide information on the amount...

Many deep‐water fish populations, being K‐selected species, have little resilience to overexploitation and may be at serious risk of depletion as a consequence. Sea warming represents an additional threat. In this study, the condition, or health, of several populations of common ling ( Molva molva ), blue ling ( Molva dypterygia ) and Mediterranean or Spanish ling ( Molva macrophthalma ) inhabiting different areas in the North...

Small‐scale driftnets (SSDs) have been historically used in the Mediterranean without major environmental concern. The introduction of large‐scale driftnets caused unwanted catches of protected species. Specific regulations were therefore issued in European waters, culminating in a proposed moratorium on SSDs. This study aimed to characterise the SSD fishery targeting anchovy (menaide), evaluating its environmental sustainabil...

Temporal variation in the population abundance of the deep‐water rose shrimp, Parapenaeus longirostris (Lucas, 1846) (Decapoda, Penaeidae), and the Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Decapoda, Nephropidae), in the Tyrrhenian Sea (NW Mediterranean), were evaluated using time‐series data (1994–2008) from experimental trawl surveys and commercial landings. The influence of several environmental variables (sea s...