The worldwide occurrence of complex climate-induced ecological shifts in marine systems is one of the major challenges in sustainable bio-resources management. The occurrence of ecological environment-driven shifts was studied in the Southern Caspian Sea using the "shiftogram" method on available fisheries-related (i.e. commercially important bentho-pelagic fish stocks) ecological and climatic ...

Interrelationships, origin and phylogenetic affinities of brown trout Salmo trutta populations from the southern Caspian Sea basin, Orumieh and Namak Lake basins in Iran were analysed from complete mtDNA control region sequences, 12 microsatellite loci and morphological characters. Among 129 specimens from six populations, seven haplotypes were observed. Based on mtDNA haplotype data, the Orumi...

During a study carried out in spring-summer 2010, the invasive Ponto-Caspian polychaete Hypania invalida (Grube, 1960) was recorded for the first time in the southern part of the River Odra estuary (southern Baltic). This is the first record of this species in Poland or in any a Baltic estuary. The appearance of H. invalida in the Odra estuary coincided with flood water descent in the Odra, sug...

Bream (Abramis brama, Berg, 1949; Family: Cyprinidae) is commercially valuable fish in the Caspian Sea fishing industry. Iranian Fisheries Organization annually produces and release up to 19 million Bream fries size for recruiting of this species. Its fries are mostly released into the Anzali wetland with 4 ppt salinity. Meanwhile, they sometimes are released into Sefidrood River (0.5 ppt), Sef...

Legally certified sturgeon fisheries require population protection and conservation methods, including DNA tests to identify the source of valuable sturgeon roe. However, the available genetic data are insufficient to distinguish between different sturgeon populations, and are even unable to distinguish between some species. We performed high-throughput single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-geno...

The Makran Coast (Iranian Coastline of the Oman Sea on the Northern Indian Ocean) plays an important role in country’s future navigation and trade due to its accessibility. In 2014, the Iranian Makran coastline was selected by the PMO to be studied as the Phase 6 in the series of Monitoring and Modelling Studies of Iranian Coasts with all disciplines being in investigated including currents. Al...

BACKGROUND Knowledge about Alburnoides remains lacking relative to many other species, resulting in a lack of a systematic position and taxonomic diagnosis. Basic biological information for Alburnoides has been constructed, and it is necessary to understand further and obtain more information about this species. Its phylogenetic relationships are still debated and no molecular data have been us...

The spatial and temporal structure of spider communities was studied in the clay semi-desert of the north-western Caspian Lowland, western Kazakhstan (49°23' N, 46°47' E). The soils and vegetation are complex, being composed of a mosaic of desert and steppe plant communities. Besides the native associations, there are plantations of different tree species. The ground-dwelling spider assemblages...

Soil salinity is considered as one of the major challenges in coastal agriculture in Bangladesh yet geographical extent of soil salinity and nutrients status have received little or no attention. This study investigated the patterns of soil salinity, total nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and sulfur between agricultural and fallow land along a 90 km distance from the coastline in Noakhali, Bang...