A shift in hake (Merluccius merluccius) population of the NW Mediterranean induced by a combined effect of climate and fishery harvesting

Climate and fisheries are often interacting with each other and producing complex synergic effects on the population dynamics of marine species. The drastic change in the climatic conditions in the North Atlantic (NA) in the early eighties triggered changes in local weather and hydrographical conditions in the Mediterranean Sea. In the other hand, the long term fishery harvesting on the stock of European hake (Merluccius merluccius) off the Balearic Islands (BA, NW Mediterranean) changed the properties of the population and its structure in the early eighties, which could have triggered a different response to the environmental variability. Using time series analysis (on the environmental and hake CPUE time series) and a population simulation model, we examine the hypothesis that these processes are linked and, in turn, a combined effect of fishery harvesting and environmental changes in the NA induced an ecological shift in the hake population off BA. The results points out that the changes in the variance and modes of hake CPUE were consistent with changes in the hydroclimatic variability in the NW Mediterranean induced by the North Atlantic climate. Population simulations show that age-structured populations act like a filter of the environmental fluctuations and can intrinsically generate cycles (‘cohort-resonance effect’) consistent with the 12 yr mode observed in the CPUE before the eighties. Size selective fishing mortality could erode the age structure and change the population filter properties. The population would have changed from internally-generated fluctuations to an externally-forced fluctuations mode after the eighties, increasing its dependency on the recruitment variability. This fits with the observations which show the high dependency of the CPUE on the recruitment variability and the winter condition modes predominating after eighties. Our results emphasize the importance of the interaction between fisheries, environment and internal dynamics that can cause transitory shifts in the behaviour of a populatio

Data and initial model set-up for the 2022 VPA stock assessment of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna

This document presents the data and initial model set-up for the 2022 Stock Assessment for the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna stock. During the 2017 Data Preparatory meetings, several changes in the data used for previous assessments have been presented, among which the revision of the Task 1 and Task 2 statistics and the selection of the indices of abundance. This led to completely revisiting the catch at age matrix and the model specifications for the 2017 assessment. For the present document, the data over the historical period (1968-2015) were nearly identical, whereas the data for the years 2016-2020 and abundance indices were updated. As agreed in previous meetings, the initial model specifications were kept identical to the 2017 assessment as no change has been agreed on since then

Review of the catch and catch-at-age estimation for the E-BFT catch inflated estimates 1998-2007

During the 2022 Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Bluefin Tuna Data Preparatory Meeting, the Bluefin Species Group (BFTSG) agreed to revise the assumptions and update the catch-atsize/catch-at-age (CAS/CAA) intersessionally by replacing the "NEI (inflated)" partial catches component (1998-2007) with a new set of combined Mediterranean size samples. An ad-hoc small group was formed to carry out this task and proposed an alternative CAS/CAA for the 2022 E-BFT stock assessment, this document summarizes these analyses. This document provides the revised CAS (version 2b), and two CAA based on the von Bertalanffy and the Richards growth curves. The small group agreed that this revised CAS is a better estimate of the size distribution for the NEI-inflated catch and proposed to be adopted by the BFTSG, and aso recommended that this revision would be applied only to VPA (Virtual Population Analysis) and possibly ASAP (Age Structured Assessment Program)

Non-Gaussian Velocity Distribution Function in a Vibrating Granular Bed

The simulation of granular particles in a quasi two-dimensional container under the vertical vibration as an experimental accessible model for granular gases is performed. The velocity distribution function obeys an exponential-like function during the vibration and deviates from the exponential function in free-cooling states. It is confirmed that this exponential-like distribution function is produced by Coulomb's friction force. A Langevin equation with Coulomb's friction is proposed to describe the motion of such the system.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. to be published in Journal of Physical Society of Japan Vol.73 No.

Final data, explorations, model set-up and diagnostics for the 2022 VPA stock assessment of the eastern and Mediterranean Atlantic bluefin tuna stock

This document presents the modeling work done for the 2022 stock assessment for the Eastern and Mediterranean Bluefin tuna stock, during informal modeling subgroup meetings in June 2022. This document presents various runs built upon the base case for the 2017 stock assessment. These runs aim at addressing issues identified in the 2020 update assessment and aspects discussed during the informal meetings held in june 2022, regarding the inclusion of updated catch at age data, improvement of model stability in relation to Fratio estimates, the selection of the age for the plus group, inclusion of the WMED_GBYP_AER index. Following several explorations, the present work contains two runs that displayed improved diagnostics compared to previous runs. These models have improved retrospective patterns and no problematic issue was found through jittering the random number generator, jittering the starting values for the terminal F estimate, bootstrapping or through jackknife analysis

2022 Proposed base case model for eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna assessment using stock synthesis.

This document presents the proposed base case for the assessment of Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean population of bluefin tuna using Stock Synthesis in 2022. The model runs from 1950 to 2020 and was fitted to length composition data, conditional age-at-length (otolith and spines–length-age pairs), 16 fishing fleets and 11 indices of abundance. Growth is modeled by a Richards function with Linf fixed at 271 cm, K fixed at 0.23387, and the shape parameter is estimated by the model. A Beverton-Holt stock recruitment relationship was estimated in the model with the steepness and sigmaR fixed at 0.9 and 0.6, respectively. R0 is freely estimated. Although the diagnostics indicate an acceptable stability of the model, there are important conflicts between the catch information, length composition and index data. The model fits to length compositions were not good, but the model followed most of the indices fairly fine. The model results showed that the SSB decreased since 1950 until 1970s, remaining relatively stable at low values during the 1980-2009 period, and showing a sharp and steady increased since 2010. Model diagnostics indicated that the different source of data provides contradicting information about the stock, resulting in biases in the results

Update of electronic tagging data and methodologies for Atlantic bluefin tuna in order to plan future tagging activities

This document presents the current electronic tagging information available for management strategy evaluation. This information also allows to identify gaps, in sizes and geographical areas, that should be taken into account to plan future tagging activities. It also describes the status of current electronic tag databases, advantages and disadvantages of electronic tags used on Atlantic bluefin tuna and outlines the technological advances that will allow the use of different types of tags (pop-up satellite archival, archival internal and acoustic tags) to improve the description of movements of this species. The conclusions section summarizes the progress needed to develop the use of electronic tagging on Atlantic bluefin tuna