Alkenone unsaturation ratios and planktonic d18O records from sediment cores of the Alboran, Ionian and Levantine basins in the Mediterranean Sea show pronounced variations in paleo-temperatures and -salinities of surface waters over the last 16,000 years. Average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are low during the last glacial (averages prior to 13,000 years: 11–15°C), vary rapidly at the begin...

BACKGROUND This paper describes a dataset of macrofaunal organisms associated with the sponge Sarcotragus foetidus Schmidt, 1862, collected by scuba diving from two sampling sites: one in Greece (North Aegean Sea) and one in Cyprus (Levantine Sea). NEW INFORMATION This dataset includes macrofaunal taxa inhabiting the demosponge Sarcotragus foetidus and contributes to the ongoing efforts of th...

In this study, we investigated, for the first time, the potential impact of environmental changes on zooplankton abundance over a fourteen year period (2000-2013) at an offshore station in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (the Levantine basin, offshore Lebanon). Samples were collected monthly and analyzed using the semi-automated system ZooScan. Salinity, temperature and phytoplankton abundance (n...

The gills of 63 specimens of the Atlantic bluefin tuna Thunnus thynnus (Linnaeus) (Osteichthyes: Scombridae) from three localities of the Mediterranean (Sardinian, Tyrrhenian and Levantine Seas) were examined for metazoan parasites. The parasite fauna of T. thynnus from the Sea of Sardinia included 11 species: five didymozoid trematodes, three capsalid and one hexostomid monogeneans, and one ca...

During the period 1998–2000, the Mediterranean Forecasting System Pilot Project, aiming to build a forecasting system for the physical state of the sea, has been carried out. A ship-of-opportunity programme sampled the Mediterranean upper ocean thermal structure by means of eXpendable Bathy-Thermographs (XBTs), along seven tracks, from September 1999 to May 2000. The tracks were designed to det...

A high resolution nested flow model for the coastal, shelf and open sea areas of the Cyprus Basin, NE Levantine, eastern Mediterranean Sea is implemented to fulfil the objectives of the Mediterranean Forecasting System Pilot Project, funded by the EU. The Cyprus coastal ocean model is nested entirely within a coarse regional grid model of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, using the MODB climatolog...

Two years of TOPEX/POSEIDON altimeter data have successfully been used to study the mesoscale field in the Mediterranean and to investigate the seasonal and year-toyear variability of the sea level and eddy statistics in this basin. The mesoscale field described by TOPEX/POSEIDON revealed a strong, but subbasin dependent, seasonal signal. Year-toyear variations are also evident in terms of both...

Identifying highly frequented areas is a priority for sea turtle conservation, and the distribution of young individuals in open waters represents a major knowledge gap due to methodological biases. The drift of hatchlings from 38 loggerhead Caretta caretta and 10 green Chelonia mydas turtle nesting sites in the Mediterranean was simulated for the first 6 mo of life, with simulations repeated f...

The present study was carried out to determine the Decapod Crustaceans fauna in association with Sarcotragus muscarum Schmidt, 1864 from the Levantine Sea coasts of Turkey studied between 13 September 2005 and 07 October 2005. As a result of the present study, a total of 711 specimens belonging to 12 decapod species were identified. Among the species determined, Synalpheus gambaroloides (Nardo,...

The present study was carried out to determine the Decapod Crustaceans fauna in association with Sarcotragus muscarum Schmidt, 1864 from the Levantine Sea coasts of Turkey studied between 13 September 2005 and 07 October 2005. As a result of the present study, a total of 711 specimens belonging to 12 decapod species were identified. Among the species determined, Synalpheus gambaroloides (Nardo,...