The ichthyoplankton composition of Izmir's Internal Bay

Abstract

In Izmir Bay, which is one of the most important fishing areas in the Aegean Sea, there have been negative changes in biological diversity because of the pollution which has occurred in the past years. With the realization of the Big Channel Project in 2001 these negative changes have begun to reverse. Many studies on these changes have been done. This study was carried out within the project called The effects of putting the Big Channel Project into action upon feeding sublevels in the Izmir Bay (YDABAG 102Y116) and the diversity, abundance, distributions and mortality of the eggs and larvae of fishes living in the Internal Izmir Bay were studied. The ichthyoplankton samples were collected vertically from 3 stations at 15-day intervals between 19.12.2002-26.12.2003 using Unesco-WP2 model plankton net (diameter 51 cm, length 2.5 m and 200.m mesh size). During the study a total of 9613.8 ind./m(2) eggs and 568.4 ind./m(2) larvae were determined. Eggs and larvae of the species Sardina pilchardus (Walbaum, 1792), Engraulis encrasicolus (Linnaeus, 1758), Diplodus sp., Symphodus melops (Linnaeus, 1758), Callionymus pusillus Delaroche, 1809, Callionymus sp., Gobius niger Linnaeus, 1758, Gobius paganellus Linnaeus, 1758, Arnoglossus sp., Buglossidium luteum (Risso, 1810) were determined. The eggs, prelarvae and postlarvae of the species E. encrasicolus were dominant. The mortality of this species'eggs was 12.05%.