Meeting report
Trani, the 25th May 1997

A Medits Steering Committee met in Trani on the 25 May 1997 with the participants named below:

The chairman welcomed the participants and made the apologies for some colleagues who intended to participate but were unable to join the meeting.

The meeting progressed on the agenda presented below.

An addendum of the Medits Manual of protocols containing the points decided during the previous meeting in Heraklion is circulated to the participants (cf. annexe I). The attention of the co-ordinators is drawn to the need to fully apply the procedure defined in the protocols for the implementation of the FM list (species codes, cf. annexe II).

The committee is informed that the organization of the surveys at sea is in progress as mentioned during the Heraklion’s meeting. It renews its recommendation to continue exchanges of scientists aboard the vessels.

It is reminded that all the validated data files from the regional groups should be transmitted to the co-ordinator laboratory (Ifremer-Sète) before the 30/09/97. This laboratory will prepare a general set of tables and figures from those data during the next October. The common analysis of the results will be done during the next general meeting in November. The SC decides that this meeting will be held the 6 to 8 November 1997 in Spain (in principle in Barcelona or Madrid, according to the proposal to be made by L. Gil de Sola). Participants involved in Medits sub-groups are invited to book their agenda the few days before this meeting, in the expectation of sub-groups' meetings during this period.

The chairman informs the Committee about the campaign presently conducted by the technologists team (IRPEM-Ifremer) on the efficiency of the Medits gear. The SC expresses its interest for the work managed during this campaign. He wishes that the results will be presented during the next general meeting.

Following the discussion during the previous SC (Heraklion), the SC decides to maintain the same presentation of the results as for the previous reports, to favour the comparison between the years. The regional co-ordinators are invited to send to the general co-ordinator the updated list of species (inside the reference list) for which the length frequency distribution by stratum should be presented for their region. Furthermore, the possibility to include length frequency distributions of the most important species by main stratum (shelf, slope and total) will be evaluated.

The report will include tables by species regrouping abundance indices obtained for each of the four years (1994-1997) by main areas. These tables will be prepared taking into account the modifications of the sampling scheme during the period (i. e. the enlargement of the area in the Adriatic sea and the increase in density of stations in the Aegean sea).

The SC expresses the wish to organize an inventory of the trawl surveys done in the Medits area by the different teams during the last period. A model of form for this survey will be proposed by the Co-ordinator. It is suggested to include the result of this exercise in the final report.

The Co-ordinator draws the attention of the SC to the usefulness to clearly refer to the Medits programme in the publications using data collected during the Medits surveys. He also asks to the SC members to send to him a copy of the papers already published, for introduction in this final report.

C.Y. Politou, co-ordinator of the project informs the SC that the project has officially begun the 01/04/97.

As agreed during the previous SC, the softwares will be developed under the Paradox environment. The data base will include files with the lists of the scientists involved in the surveys (cf. boarding tables) and available data on environment parameters (salinity and temperature).

A web site for the project will be open for the end of the next June. This web site will include the following items: presentation of the project, data base structure, data base group, comments, meetings and services.

The discussion shows the interest for an enlargement of the web site for the whole Medits programme. The SC recommends the elaboration of a progress report of the project, including suggestions about the enlargement of the web site, for the end of October 1997. This report will be circulated to the SC members for discussion during the November meeting.

Waiting for the completion of the Database project, some improvements have been written by A. Souplet in the software used at present for the common analyses of the Medits data. These improvements have been prepared particularly to facilitate the elaboration of the data for the symposium in Pisa. They are presented to the SC (cf. annexe III). The software is available for the scientists involved in the Medits programme.

As decided during the previous SC, G. Le Corre has been invited to present the progress of the FIGIS programme. In this presentation, the co-ordinator of this programme highlights the following points.

FIGIS is a three years FAIR project (1996-1998). The general objectives are to carry out case studies on spatial components of fisheries using the GIS concept and tools. The topics analysed are "resources" related to environment and "fleets" related to regulation.

At the end of the first year, the FIGIS partners have begun different studies and have developed a technical platform to share common means (data, tools, GIS studies, documents). The FIGIS project does not include data acquisition. It integrates existing data set required for the case studies. The management of the references concerning the information sources (publication, author or holder) and of the access to this information is included in the FIGIS technical platform.

This organization and the work in progress may facilitate the Medits data analysis. From FIGIS, the exhaustive coverage done by the Medits programme along the coasts of the four European countries offers a particular interest. G. Le Corre suggests two ways for collaboration : (i) comparison of abundance indices estimated using standard strata and using specific distribution areas defined from survey results and (ii) relationship between spatial distribution of abundance indices and environmental parameters.

The SC underlines the advantages to develop a collaboration between the two programmes. It incites to begin this collaboration on a few case studies, for instance in two very different areas like the Aegean sea and the Gulf of Lions. It suggests that the results which will be available on these pilot areas will be presented during the symposium in Pisa (March 1998) to assess the perspectives for an enlargement of the tested approaches to the whole Medits area.

A request for a financial support for the symposium in Pisa (March 1998) has been presented to the European Commission (DG XIV). The University of Pisa and the Centro Interuniversitario di Biologia Marina di Livorno have been also sollicited to contribute to the organisation of the symposium. When they will have agree, those organisations will be considered as official partners on the organisation of this meeting.

The scientists who intend to contribute to the analyses of the Medits data are invited to send their tentative tittle(s) by the end of June. Final tittles with an abstract should be sent by the 15 October 1997. The full papers would be prepared for the end of December 1997. The Medits Co-ordination Committee will organize an ad hoc committee to screen the proposals submitted for inclusion in the proceedings. It is decided to limit to six the total number of pages by paper. A supplement up to four pages should be exceptionally accepted. All the documents for publication should be ready by the end of January 1998.

A first announcement for the symposium has been prepared and circulated in May. The second announcement will be sent before the summer holidays. It will specify the instructions to authors.

According to information from the European Commission staff, a new European call for proposals for data collection and studies should be published soon. The delay to prepare the answers will be short (probably one month). The Medits SC holds two main topics for discussion, the continuation of the Medits data collection and the collection of landings data.

The SC confirms its intention to present a new project to strengthen the Medits series begun in 1994. It agrees to present a three years project managed with the same general organisation as for the previous ones and including the three following tasks.

The surveys will be proposed with the same protocols as for the last few years. Nevertheless, the following points will be taken into consideration.

- The SC considers the opportunity to add the collection of environment indicators (temperature, salinity, etc.) simultaneously with the biological ones. The objective should be only to collect basic information useful to explain the variations observed on these biological parameters. The SC agrees to progress on that way. But, it highlights that this activity should be organised using a not too expensive device and with low constraints for the staffs on board. It invites A. Tursi and N. Ungaro to collect information on the available devices for this purpose.

- The SC upholds its interest for the introduction of new partnerships for the future Medits surveys. For the time being, proposals for a collaboration with Malta and Cyprus are studied. The wish for an enlargement towards the Maghreb countries (particularly Tunisia) is also highlighted. The new project should open the possibility for this kind of enlargement during its duration.

- During the first years, the Medits group intended to use a device for a remote-controlled closing of the trawl (Genisea system). This project had been suspended for different reasons, more particularly because the proposed system was not fully tested in the conditions of the Medits surveys. The co-ordinator informs the SC that he asked for the technologists team to make some tests with this aim during their campaigns this year. The SC wishes to wait for the results of these tests before taking a new decision on this question.

- The SC recommends to continue to encourage the exchanges of researchers at sea as in the laboratories to favour the homogeneity of the work inside the programme.

For this task, the intention is to pursue the year to year presentation and the analysis of standard indicators on biomass and length distributions concerning the target species. The basic work will be done with the tool developed through the Data base project.

It is suggested to include in the project a supplementary task for further analysis of the Medits data. These analyses would contain comparisons about the species distributions (i.e. abundance and length distribution) between areas, depth levels and years. They should be made in priority for some of some important species. The aim of this task should be also to produce syntheses combining data in multispecies approaches (assemblages). It is suggested that this task should be managed through an Italian co-ordination.

Note. Since the beginning of the programme, the SC is preoccupied with the need for an intercalibration between the different boats used for the Medits surveys. During the meeting, the Italian group informs the SC that he is managing a national programme to compare the gears and the boats used for trawl surveys (including the Medits survey) in Italy. Specific works inside this programme will be conducted in 1997. The SC expresses its great interest for the results that will be obtained in that way.

The SC acknowledges the EC’s request for a reinforcement of landings data collection in the Mediterranean. The SC recognises that the Medits organisation should be a useful support for a such programme. But, taking into consideration the objective to maintain links between trawl surveys and surveys on landings, the SC underlines that the two projects should be presented independently. Finally, it recommends that the SC members who are interested by this question should join Prof. angelo Tursi after the meeting to discuss basis for a common proposal.

During the meeting, S. Jukic presents some common general results obtained in the Adriatic Sea during the Medits ‘96 survey. He underlines the interest of the maps produced from the Medits surveys to characterise the fish biomass distribution and their usefulness to illustrate the need for a common fisheries policy in this area.

Following the SC’s recommendation for a large information on the work done inside the Medits programme, the Co-ordination committee’s members decided to present a paper to the 1997 ICES Annual Science Conference for a session entitled Synthesis and critical evaluation of Research surveys. The abstract of this paper is enclosed in annexe IV.

The Co-ordinator warmly thanks Prof. Marano and his team, particularly N. Ungaro, for their support and for the quality of accommodation provided to the group during the meeting. He also thanks the participants for their useful contribution. He wishes that they will be able to follow the SIBM congress, a very nice opportunity to get information on the last Italian research results and to develop relationships with Italian scientists involved in Marine biology.

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