Hydrographic variability and biomass fluctuations of European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) in the Central Mediterranean Sea: Monetary estimations and impacts on fishery from Lagrangian analysis

During the last decades, scientific community has been investigating both biological and hydrographic processes that affect fisheries. Such an interdisciplinary and synergic approach is nowadays giving a fundamental contribution, in particular, in connecting the dots between hydrographic phenomena and biomass variability and distribution of small pelagic fish. Here we estimate impacts of hydrographic fluctuations on small pelagic fishery, focusing on the inter-annual variability that characterizes connectivity between spawning and recruiting areas for the European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus, Linnaues 1758), in the Northern side of the Sicily Channel (Mediterranean Sea). Results show that coastal transport dynamics of a specific year largely affect the biomass recorded the following year. Our work, moreover, quantifies the specific monetary impacts on landings of European anchovy fishery due to hydrodynamics variability, connecting biomass fluctuations with fishery economics in a highly dynamic and exploited marine environment as the Sicily Channel. In particular, we build a model that attributes a monetary value to the hydrographic phenomena (i.e., cross-shore vs. alongshore eggs and larvae transport), registered in the FAO Geographical Sub-Area (GSA) 16 (Southern Sicily). This allows us to provide a monetary estimation of catches, derived from different transport dynamics. Our results highlight the paramount importance that hydrographic phenomena can have over the socio-economic performance of a fishery.