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Man-made changes in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and their effect on the fishery resources

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Abstract

The construction of the Suez Canal caused extensive faunistic changes in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Thirty species of Red Sea fishes are known to occur along the Mediterranean coast of Israel and Lebanon; 21 of them are common, and among them 16 appear regularly in the commercial catches. It is estimated that they constitute 21% of the Israeli trawl fishing and 8% of the inshore fishery. The construction of the Aswan High Dam in 1964 stopped the seasonal Nile floods of August–December. It was reported that, simultaneously, the Egyptian sardinella fishery collapsed. However, the Israeli sardinella fishery in post-Aswan years does not show any decrease in catches as compared with the period before 1964.

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Author notes

  1. A. Ben-Tuvia

    Present address: Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Ltd., Haifa Laboratories, Haifa, Israel

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    1. A. Ben-Tuvia
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    Additional information

    Communicated by O. Kinne, Hamburg

    This work was supported by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., USA.

    The paper was read at the 22nd Congress of the International Commission for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean, Rome, 30 November-8 December, 1970.

    Contribution No. 37 of the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Ltd., Haifa, Israel.

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    Ben-Tuvia, A. Man-made changes in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and their effect on the fishery resources. Mar. Biol. 19, 197–203 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02097138

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