An operational assimilation system incorporating significant wave height observations in high resolution numerical wave models is studied and evaluated. In particular, altimeter satellite data provided by the European Space Agency (ESA-ENVISAT) are assimilated in the wave model WAM which operates in two different wave climate areas: the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. The first is a win...

The mechanisms that determine population structure in highly mobile marine species are poorly understood, but useful towards understanding the evolution of diversity, and essential for effective conservation and management. In this study, we compare putative sperm whale populations located in the Gulf of Mexico, western North Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea and North Sea using mtDNA control region ...

Commercial fisheries have dramatically impacted elasmobranch populations worldwide. With high capture and bycatch rates, the abundance of many species is rapidly declining and around a quarter of the world's sharks and rays are threatened with extinction. At a regional scale this negative trend has also been evidenced in the central Mediterranean Sea, where bottom-trawl fisheries have affected ...

Aristeus antennatus is an ecologically and economically important deep-water species in the Mediterranean Sea. In this study we investigated the genetic variability of A. antennatus sampled from 10 sampling stations in the Western and Central Mediterranean. By comparing our new samples with available data from the Western area, we aim to identify potential genetic stocks of A. antennatus and to...

The composition of sterols, volatiles and some polar compounds from three Corallina samples (C. granifera and C. mediterranea from the Black Sea and C. mediterranea from the Mediterranean Sea) was established. The sterol composition of the Black Sea samples was similar but it differs from that of the Mediterranean sample. The composition of the volatiles was very complex. The main groups of con...

We present a top-down ship NOx emission inventory for the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean Sea based on satellite-observed tropospheric NO2 columns of the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) for 2005–2006. We improved the representation of ship emissions in the GEOS-Chem chemistry transport model, and compared simulated NO2 columns to consistent satellite observa...

In this study, we investigate the sources of moisture (and moisture for precipitation) over the Danube River Basin (DRB) by means of a Lagrangian approach using the FLEXPART V9.0 particle dispersion model together with ERA-Interim reanalysis data to track changes in atmospheric moisture over 10-day trajectories. This approach computes the budget of evaporation-minus-precipitation by calculating...

We have developed a new coastal database for the Mediterranean basin that is intended for coastal impact and adaptation assessment to sea-level rise and associated hazards on a regional scale. The data structure of the database relies on a linear representation of the coast with associated spatial assessment units. Using information on coastal morphology, human settlements and administrative bo...

Interand intraspecific crossbreeding experiments were conducted to evaluate the aquaculture potential of hybrids in the genus Dicentrarchus, focusing on fertilisation and hatching success. The experimental design consisted of 24 controlled crosses in which individual and pooled fertilisations were made between wild D. labrax individuals (8 dams and 5 sires originating from West Mediterranean an...