La Commission Internationale pour l'Exploration Scientifique de la Mer Méditerranée
Abstract
Demersal assemblages from trawl surveys made at depths of 45-800m in trawled areas within the 25NM Fisheries Management Zone round the Maltese Islands were related to environmental characteristics on the seabed. Depth, temperature, and mean grain size all affected the structure of the demersal assemblages but depth and temperature gradient were overall the most important in that order; while mean grain size seemed more important for relatively shallow bottoms (<80m) than for deep ones.peer-reviewe