J. Dokos Greece

F. Corsi Italy

C.-Y. Politou (Chairwoman) Greece

A. Souplet France

2. General information

The coordinator presented the excuses of S. Kavadas (NCMR), who could not participate in the meeting because of health problems.

The coordinator informed the participants that the first payment of the project (that started officially the 1^st of April 1997) arrived in the beginning of July and the shares of the participants were distributed by then. At the same time, the first version of the MEDITS DMS software constructed by the NCMR was sent in CD form to the project participants for the first validation. The MEDITS DMS software is also available through the internet.

3. Presentation of the structure DB and of the Data Management System

The MEDITS DMS software developed by NCMR (using Paradox as a database engine and Delphi as a client server development tool) was demonstrated in its latest version to the participants for discussion and remarks.

The work done so far includes the following subjects:

a. Main viewing and editing database interface

b. Import data

c. Export data

d. Definition of fishing areas

a. Main viewing and editing database interface

The main form of the program gives access to the database tables. We can insert, view and edit records. There is automatic validity check while inserting values to the various fields and cross-checking is performed between TB and TC tables. During insertion an update of the database can be made with any new species that has been found during the cruises.

b. Import data

Through the main form there is access to the form that helps import data. The data must be of the MEDITS format. During import validity check for the values entered and cross-checking between the data entered in the TB and TC tables takes place, whereas an error report is shown.

c. Export data

Data can be exported in MEDITS or comma (,) delimited format. The second format can be imported in a spreadsheet like EXCEL or QUATRO for further data analysis. For the time being exportation can be made only for all the data from TA,TB and TC tables.

d. Definition of fishing areas

The fishing areas can be inserted in the database so that they will be used later for data analysis. So far only the part of the form for the insertion of new areas is complete, whereas viewing and editing of the areas is under construction.

4. Algorithms

According to the proposal the statistical part (algorithms) was undertaken by IFREMER. A. Souplet provided the group of NCMR with the pseudocodes of the algorithms for the calculation of abundance and biomass indices, of CPUE and length distributions.

5. Internet

A web site with information on the project constructed by NCMR is open from the beginning of July. This web side was presented to the participants during the meeting. It includes the following items: presentation of the project (containing the proposal), download area (offering a graphical interface to download the last updated version of the project), data base group, comments, meetings and services. The last 4 items are under construction. The MEDITS DMS web side address is :

http://orfeas.ncmr.ariadne-t.gr/MeditsWWW/MDMS_index.html

Also the following address gives direct access to the MEDITS DMS software:

ftp://orfeas.ncmr.ariadne-t.gr/pub/MeditsDMS

During the last meeting of the MEDITS SC (Trani, 25 May 1997) an interest was shown for the enlargement of the web site for the whole MEDITS program. This task is already included in the proposal of MEDITS DMS and will be undertaken by the Italian group. In the present meeting it was proposed that the web site of the MEDITS program comprises two levels of security. The first level may contain the documents produced by MEDITS which are available to the public (e.g. reports), whereas the second level will be available to the partners only. It may contain the MEDITS results such as the abundance indices and any other data that the SC will decide. The Italian group was charged to begin the construction of the MEDITS web site until the end of October 1997.

6. Miscellaneous

Due to the detection of some species with double codes in the FM list, it was proposed and accepted that the FM lists of the different MEDITS participants will be collected and examined by A. Souplet every year. The updated and amended list will be transmitted to NCMR in order to distribute it to the partners through the MEDITS DMS.

There is a problem in the communication with the Spanish team, which have not answered the coordinators messages. We will try again to communicate with them.

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Concerted Action leader: Øyvind Ultang

The long term goal is to develop stock assessment and prediction models which utilizes all relevant knowledge of importance for fish population dynamics, including species interactions and the effects of a fluctuating environment, and thereby increase both the time horizon and reliability of our predictions. This will require a long term research strategy. The short term goal is to identify key explaining variables to be used in predictive relationships and coordinate research to establish such relationships and gradually implement them in the assessment models.

Based on the considerations above, the project will include the following objectives:

1. Identification of main causes for shortcomings in present fish stock assessments and predictions.

Rothschild (1986) notes that the complexity of the task of predicting fish population variability is rooted in the virtually infinite dimensionality of the marine ecosystem. To succeed in our attempts to improve our short or long term predictions of fish stock development, existing background knowledge should be used for choosing candidates for key ancillary variables among the many possible ones and concentrate our further investigations around these. There is a risk that a project like the present one ends up with a long list of potential useful variables and relationships, presenting arguments pro et contra reflecting the various views without any helpful conclusions for the assessment scientist. To counteract this risk, the project group has to be careful in deciding on concerted effort towards addressing specific hypotheses of major importance for stock assessment and management. The effect of sea temperature on recruitment, growth and survival is an example of an issue which needs a concerted effort, and this could be done by trying to assess the effect for several stocks of a species representing different environments, and also assessing the effects for different species.

2. Consideration of the limits set by nature on predictability of fish stock development. To what extent will the probabilistic character of many physical and biological processes limit the predictability of events?

3 Review "the state of the art" within relevant research areas and identify the kind of scientific knowledge potentiality useful in fish stock predictions which exists without being effectively used at present. Discuss how such knowledge most effectively could be used in stock assessments and predictions and investigate whether existing oceanographic and biological time series, or other available data, can be used for expanding the scientific knowledge relevant for fish stock assessments. Propose future coordinated research.

4. Carry out case studies for selected areas and stocks with the aim of demonstrating the potential for improvements in quality and time horizon of fish stock predictions.

5. Evaluate how communication/co-operation between fish stock assessment experts and experts within various fields of basic marine sciences can be improved. Evaluate how communications between experts working in different geographical regions may improve understanding and quality.

Partners sorted by country.

*Subcontractors to Coordinator:

As stated above, present fish stock assessment practice is characterized by too sharp a de facto separation of fish stock assessment experts and experts within various fields of basic marine sciences. This hamper the optimal use of available scientific knowledge in the stock assessment process. The present project will involve experts within the following three broad research areas (topics):

There is no clear division line between these topics, and most of the experts will cover more than one of them. This also reflects the integrated approach which is a key element in the project.

It has also been attempted to involve experts from very different geographical areas. In north-south direction, the following three major areas are represented:

In addition two experts from North America have been invited to participate.

The tasks will be dealt with by working groups (WGs) reporting to plenary meetings, the WGs being organized by topic (Topic 1-3) for some tasks and by geographical areas (Area 1-3) for others as shown below: