Lionfishes Pterois miles and Pterois volitans in the North-eastern Mediterranean Sea: Distribution, Habitation, Predation and Predators
Abstract
The lionfish Pterois miles was first recorded in the Iskenderun Bay on 2014 in Turkish ... more Abstract
The lionfish Pterois miles was first recorded in the Iskenderun Bay on 2014 in Turkish Marine waters, and then its distribution was extended to Mersin and Antalya Bays in 2014 in the Mediterranean part of Turkey. The first observation of P. miles in the Aegean Sea was from Fethiye region in July 2015. The extension of P. miles in Turkish marine waters seems to be fast even though it’s slow moving feature. Second species of the lionfish, red lionfish Pterois volitans, was also recorded from Turkish Marine waters on May 2016 by a commercial purse seine at 30 m depth at İskenderun Bay and underwater observation was also recorded on October 2016 at Antakya Bay. Therefore, the number of Pterois species in the Mediterranean Sea has reached to two, P. miles and P. volitans. Based on underwater observations, P. miles and P. volitans are usually observed in rocky and cave habitats and prefer 10-40 meters for feeding that may cause the reduction of populations of vanikoro sweeper (Pemperis spp.), cardinal fish (Apagon spp.) and red coat (Holocentrus rubrum) species. P. miles and P. volitans also show cohabitation and gathering usually with 2-5 individuals. Grouper species such as dusky gruper Ephinephelus marginatus and goldblotch grouper Ephinephelus costae are the main predators of the lionfishes.
Full Text Link: http://nesciences.com/abstract_info.php?page=info&paperID=146
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Papers by Cemal Turan
In this study 6 species (Epinephelus aeneus, Epinephelus caninus, Epinephelus costae, Epinephelus marginatus, Hyporthodus haifensis, Mycteroperca rubra) of Serranidae family were classified by using a color based feature extraction method. A database which consists of 112 fish images was used in this study. In each image, a fish was located on a white background floor with the same position and the images were taken from different distances. A combination of manual processes and automatic algorithms were applied on images until obtaining colored fish sample images with a black background. Since the presented color based feature extraction method avoids including background, these images were processed by using an automatic algorithm in order to obtain a solid texture image from the fish and extract features. The obtained solid texture image was in HSV color space and used due to extract meaningful information about fish sample. Each of the hue, saturation and value components of the HSV color space was used separately in order to extract 7 statistical features. Hence, totally 21 features were extracted for each fish sample. The extracted features were used within Nearest Neighbor algorithm and 112 fish samples from 6 species were classified with an overall accuracy achievement of 86%.
Full Text Link: http://nesciences.com/abstract_info.php?page=info&paperID=139
The lionfish Pterois miles was first recorded in the Iskenderun Bay on 2014 in Turkish Marine waters, and then its distribution was extended to Mersin and Antalya Bays in 2014 in the Mediterranean part of Turkey. The first observation of P. miles in the Aegean Sea was from Fethiye region in July 2015. The extension of P. miles in Turkish marine waters seems to be fast even though it’s slow moving feature. Second species of the lionfish, red lionfish Pterois volitans, was also recorded from Turkish Marine waters on May 2016 by a commercial purse seine at 30 m depth at İskenderun Bay and underwater observation was also recorded on October 2016 at Antakya Bay. Therefore, the number of Pterois species in the Mediterranean Sea has reached to two, P. miles and P. volitans. Based on underwater observations, P. miles and P. volitans are usually observed in rocky and cave habitats and prefer 10-40 meters for feeding that may cause the reduction of populations of vanikoro sweeper (Pemperis spp.), cardinal fish (Apagon spp.) and red coat (Holocentrus rubrum) species. P. miles and P. volitans also show cohabitation and gathering usually with 2-5 individuals. Grouper species such as dusky gruper Ephinephelus marginatus and goldblotch grouper Ephinephelus costae are the main predators of the lionfishes.
Full Text Link: http://nesciences.com/abstract_info.php?page=info&paperID=146
Elongate bulleye, Priacanthus prolixus was first time recorded from the Mediterranean Sea. One specimen of P. prolixus was caught by a commercial trawler at a depth of 70 m in 7 November 2016 from İskenderun Bay, Norteastern Mediterranean Sea, Turkey. The occurrence of this species in the Mediterranean Sea is most probably due to migration from the Red Sea via the Suez Canal.
Full Text Link: http://nesciences.com/abstract_info.php?page=info&paperID=148
Marine ecosystems nestle species or populations known to be threatened due to human overexploitation. Reliable detection and monitoring of threatened organisms is crucial for data-driven conservation actions. Furthermore, misidentification of species represents a major problem. Here, we investigate the potential of using metabarcoding of environmental DNA (eDNA) obtained directly from seawater samples to detect endangered grouper species (Epinephelus spp.). Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) fragment of mtDNA was used to detect groupers species in the Mediterranean Coasts. We conducted eDNA sampling at sites by underwater diving across the range of the Grouper species habitats in Northeastern Mediterranean (Antalya-Kas Region and Iskenderun Bay). eDNA was isolated from 2 liter seawater samples which were vacuum-filtered onto 0.45-mm membrane filters. Filters were then folded inwards, placed in 2 ml tubes and stored at -20 oC until DNA extraction, which took place within 24 hours. DNA was extracted from the water sample filters using the DNeasy Blood and Tissue Kit (Qiagen, USA). Manufacturer’s protocols were used during all steps. PCR amplification of eDNA samples were done using selective primers of COI region of mitochondrial DNA, and next-generation DNA sequencing of PCR application was conducted. For the successfully obtained COI sequences, maximum matching rates were revealed as 80% for Epinephelus marginatus, 78,95% for Epinephelus aeneus, 73,48% for Epinephelus costae, 63,45% for Epinephelus caninus, 60,12% for Mycteroperca rubra and 57,12% for Hyporthodus haifensis. Despite the methodological challenges inherent in eDNA analysis, the results demonstrated that eDNA method may be proved to step towards a new beginning to detect and monitor endangered grouper species.
Several microsatellite loci were tried for Scophthalmus maeoticus by using microsatellite primers which have been developed and reported to date for turbot Scophthalmus maximus (Linnaeus, 1758) to understand if they are appropriate usage for S. maeoticus. We noticed the development and characterization of polymorphic microsatellite markers for S. maeoticus. Only five of these microsatellite loci were successfully amplified with new developed PCR conditions and used for routine analysis of stock identification of S. maeoticus.
Full text link: http://nesciences.com/abstract_info.php?page=info&paperID=51
Full text link: http://nesciences.com/abstract_info.php?page=info&paperID=47
Longfin gurnard Chelidonichthys obscurus (Walbaum, 1792) is reported several times from various researchers in the checklist of Turkish marine fishes. However, last three decades, the species is not occurred in the distributional range, comprising the northeastern Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Sea coast of Turkey. It is possibly critically endangered or absent in the Turkish Seas. Moreover, there has no any biological study been carried out on C. obscurus in Turkey. C. obscurus is considered to be critically endangered or regionally extinct in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Sea coast of Turkey. This species might be recorded as " Critically Endangered " in the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea coast of Turkey in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Scopthalmus rhombus is rarely occurred and restricted to marine and estuarine sites in the eastern Marmara Sea and western Black Sea coast of Turkey. S. rhombus is occasionally caught in low numbers and continuously decreased in abundance due to overfishing and habitat degradations. This species should be considered to be threatened for Turkish marine waters. This species might also be recorded in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as Near Threatened (NT).
On 15 March 2015, a single specimen of Parupeneus forsskali (Fourmanoir & Guézé, 1976) was captured by a trammel net at a depth of 30 m from Iskenderun Bay. The occurrence of the Red Sea goatfish P. forsskali was reported for the first time in the Iskenderun Bay and the first captured data for the Turkish marine waters.