The climate and eastern ocean systems project

A brief description of the NMFS/ORSTOM/ILCARM climate and Eastern Ocean systems (CEOS) project is given. CEOS will study the four major eastern boundary current regions (Peru/Chile, California, Northwest and Southwest Africa) and attempt to separate local short term changes of their resources and/or dynamics from long-term, climatic global changes. Expected products range from a large, widely accessible oceanographic / atmospheric database to various documents that will present key results as well as improved contacts and stronger analytical capabilities in cooperating national institutions.

How fresh is too fresh?: the live reef food fish trade in eastern Indonesia

Although the live reef food fish trade has become an increasingly "hot" topic in the environmental press in recent months, many of the sources reporting on this practice have tended to focus on issues related to the rampant use of sodium cyanide in the trade, rather than the more pressing matter of the looming potential for overexploitation engendered by this practice. Presented in this article is a brief overview of the live reef food fish trade as it is practiced in eastern Indonesia covering the methods used and economics, geographic extent and numerous deleterious effects of the fishery.

Economic seaweed resources and their management in eastern Indonesia

The article focuses on the economic seaweed resources and production in eastern Indonesia and how the fishers in the country adjust their system in managing the resources. Particular attention is given to seaweed which can be used as materials for producing carageenan and agar; most carrageenophyte species explored in eastern Indonesia belong to the genera Kappaphycus and Eucheuma; and seaweeds that produce agar belong to families Gelidiaceae and Gracilariaceae.

Piper and Vismia Species from Colombian Amazonia Differentially Affect Cell Proliferation of Hepatocarcinoma Cells

There is an increasing interest to identify plant-derived natural products with antitumor activities. In this work, we have studied the effects of aqueous leaf extracts from Amazonian Vismia and Piper species on human hepatocarcinoma cell toxicity. Results showed that, depending on the cell type, the plants displayed differential effects; thus, Vismia baccifera induced the selective killing of HepG2, while increasing cell growth of PLC-PRF and SK-HEP-1. In contrast, these two last cell lines were sensitive to the toxicity by Piper krukoffii and Piper putumayoense, while the Piperaceae did not affect HepG2 growth. All the extracts induced cytotoxicity to rat hepatoma McA-RH7777, but were innocuous (V. baccifera at concentrations < 75 mu g/mL) or even protected cells from basal death (P. putumayoense) in primary cultures of rat hepatocytes. In every case, cytotoxicity was accompanied by an intracellular accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). These results provide evidence for the anticancer activities of the studied plants on specific cell lines and suggest that cell killing could be mediated by ROS, thus involving mechanisms independent of the plants free radical scavenging activities. Results also support the use of these extracts of the Vismia and Piper genera with opposite effects as a model system to study the mechanisms of the antitumoral activity against different types of hepatocarcinoma.

VPA estimates of fishing mortality and exploited biomass from Sardinella aurita catch-at-length data in eastern Venezuela

In this study, length-frequency data on Spanish sardine (Sardinella aurita) from northeastern Venezuela were analyzed for the period 1967-1989. Average growth parameters for the von Bertalanffy equation were established as L sub( infinity )= 26.6 cm (TL) and K = 1.26 year super(-1). The number of recruits to the fishing area, estimated from length-structured Virtual Population Analysis, varied from <10 super(8) in the late 1960s to >10 super(9) at the end of the 1980s. Exploited biomass estimates for the same period varied from less than 20,000 t in the first year to more than 100,000 in 1989. Both recruitment and exploited biomass showed different seasonal patterns between 1976-1983 and 1984-1988. Despite some uncertainty regarding these estimates, it is considered that major population tendencies are adequately represented by this analysis

The fisheries of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States

A brief review of the main features of the Caribbean fisheries is presented covering the States of Antigua/Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts/Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Nearshore fish resources and fisheries around Kigoma, eastern coast of Lake Tanganyika

The fish habitats along an inshore water stretch along the eastern/central coast of Lake Tanganyika are discussed and a quantitative analysis of the species composition, distribution and abundance of the littoral fishes within the area of study is presented. Seventy-one species of fish belonging to 48 genera and to 15 fish families were collected and identified during the study. The majority of species belonged to the Cichlidae family. Intensive beach seining for clupeids is suggested as one of the causes of low fish biomass in the area surveyed. The areas south of Kigoma appeared to contain more fish, with average catch rates of 11.7 kg/haul than those north of Kigoma where average catch rates of 7.6 kg/haul were recorded. Some suggestions for improved management of these resources are given.

A preliminary study on the feeding regime of European pilchard (Sardina pilchardus Walbaum 1792) in Izmir Bay, Turkey, Eastern Aegean Sea

The gut contents of Sardina pilchardus specimens captured in Izmir Bay were examined in order to determine their feeding regimes. Of the 365 stomachs examined, 321 (87.95%) contained food and 44 (12.05%) were empty. Analysis of gut contents verified that S. pilchardus feeds on zooplankton. The most important group in the diet of S. pilchardus was copepods (79.79%). Decapod crustacean larvae (8.17%) and bivalves (3.18%) were second and third, respectively, in order of importance. The application of analysis of variance to monthly data of numerical percentage, weight percentage, frequency of occurrence and index of relative importance indicated that there was no significant difference between months. Oncaea media was the most dominant species for six months of the year. Euterpina acutifrons, Centropages typicus, Calanoida, Oncaea sp. and Corycaeus sp. were the most dominant for March, April, May, September, October and December.

Nineteenth-century Ship-based Catches of Gray Whales, Eschrichtius robustus, in the Eastern North Pacific

The 19th century commercial ship-based fishery for gray whales, Eschrichtius robustus, in the eastern North Pacific began in 1846 and continued until the mid 1870’s in southern areas and the 1880’s in the north. Henderson identified three periods in the southern part of the fishery: Initial, 1846–1854; Bonanza, 1855–1865; and Declining, 1866–1874. The largest catches were made by “lagoon whaling” in or immediately outside the whale population’s main wintering areas in Mexico—Magdalena Bay, Scammon’s Lagoon, and San Ignacio Lagoon. Large catches were also made by “coastal” or “alongshore” whaling where the whalers attacked animals as they migrated along the coast. Gray whales were also hunted to a limited extent on their feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi Seas in summer. Using all available sources, we identified 657 visits by whaling vessels to the Mexican whaling grounds during the gray whale breeding and calving seasons between 1846 and 1874. We then estimated the total number of such visits in which the whalers engaged in gray whaling. We also read logbooks from a sample of known visits to estimate catch per visit and the rate at which struck animals were lost. This resulted in an overall estimate of 5,269 gray whales (SE = 223.4) landed by the ship-based fleet (including both American and foreign vessels) in the Mexican whaling grounds from 1846 to 1874. Our “best” estimate of the number of gray whales removed from the eastern North Pacific (i.e. catch plus hunting loss) lies somewhere between 6,124 and 8,021, depending on assumptions about survival of struck-but-lost whales. Our estimates can be compared to those by Henderson (1984), who estimated that 5,542–5,507 gray whales were secured and processed by ship-based whalers between 1846 and 1874; Scammon (1874), who believed the total kill over the same period (of eastern gray whales by all whalers in all areas) did not exceed 10,800; and Best (1987), who estimated the total landed catch of gray whales (eastern and western) by American ship-based whalers at 2,665 or 3,013 (method-dependent) from 1850 to 1879. Our new estimates are not high enough to resolve apparent inconsistencies between the catch history and estimates of historical abundance based on genetic variability. We suggest several lines of further research that may help resolve these inconsistencies.

History of the Bay Scallop, Argopecten irradians, Fisheries and Habitats in eastern North America, Massachusetts through northeastern Mexico

This is a broad historical overview of the bay scallop, Argopecten irradians, fishery on the East and Gulf Coasts of North America (Fig. 1). For a little over a century, from about the mid 1870’s to the mid 1980’s, bay scallops supported large commercial fisheries mainly in the U.S. states of Massachusetts, New York, and North Carolina and on smaller scales in the states in between and in western Florida. In these states, the annual harvests and dollar value of bay scallops were far smaller than those of the other important commercial mollusks, the eastern oysters, Crassostrea virginica, and northern quahogs, Mercenaria mercenaria, but they were higher than those of softshell clams, Mya arenaria (Table 1). The fishery had considerable economic importance in the states’ coastal towns, because bay scallops are a high-value product and the fishery was active during the winter months when the economies in most towns were otherwise slow. The scallops also had cultural importance as a special food, an ornament owing to its pretty shell design, and an interesting biological component of