MEDITS Annual Campaign
International bottom trawl survey in the Mediterranean
The annual MEDITS (International bottom trawl survey in the Mediterranean) campaign has just ended. The MEDITS campaign aims to obtain baseline information on the biological status of most demersal fish stocks on a global scale in the Mediterranean Sea through systematic bottom trawl surveys. The project began in 1994 as part of the cooperation between several research institutes of four Mediterranean Member States (France, Greece, Italy and Spain) of the European Union. Over time, until the advent of the European Data Collection Framework (DCF) and Management for Fisheries, the MEDITS project was joined by new partners from Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Malta and Cyprus. This programme has been designed with the following basic aims: (i) contribute to the characterisation of bottom fisheries resources in the Mediterranean in terms of population distribution (relative abundance indices) and population structures (length distributions); (ii) provide data for the modelling the dynamics of the studied species. The overall goal was, and is, to conduct a joint scientific trawl survey in the Mediterranean in which all participants would use the same gear, sampling protocol and methodology. These protocols were defined taking into account the characteristics of the areas covered by the first survey, but also in a way that would easily allow for an expansion of the program to other areas of the Mediterranean. They include survey design, sampling tools (features and handling), information collected, data management up to the production of common standardized data analyses. IRBIM CNR is involved in this program with two of its sites, respectively IRBIM CNR in Mazara del Vallo for GSA16 (Geographical sub-area South of Sicily) and IRBIM CNR of Messina for GSA 10 (Geographical sub-area South and central Tyrrhenian sea), as part of the National Fisheries Data Collection Work Plan 2023 for the study of demersal resources and to evaluate the post-capture survival of elasmobranchs and bony fish.
22.12.2023 - Mazara del Vallo