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A recently discovered fish specimen representing the family Diodontidae has been documented in the waters off Mazara del Vallo in southwest Sicily, Italy. A detailed description of the morphological and meristic characteristics of the specimen is reported. Molecular identification was performed through sequence analysis of the Cytochrome Oxidase subunit I (COI). The specimen was identified as Chilomycterus reticulatus (Linnaeus, 1758) both morphologically and genetically. The finding marks the third confirmed record of Chilomycterus reticulatus in the Mediterranean Sea and Italian waters. The significance of the presence of this uncommon fish in the basin is briefly discussed, shedding light on its occurrence and potential implications.

This study investigates the distribution and morphometrics of the little sleeper shark, Somniosus rostratus (Risso, 1827), in the Mediterranean Sea. Ten sharks caught as bycatch between 2009 and 2019 in the northern sectors of the Strait of Sicily, the south Tyrrhenian Sea, the northwestern Ionian Sea, and the south Adriatic Sea using drifting longlines, as well as five retrieved from the Tripoli (Libya) marketplace, were morphologically confirmed to represent S. rostratus. The sharks exhibited typical characteristics for this species and were all caught from deep waters, indicating a potential mesopelagic habit. The study also utilized literature reviews and global databases for a comprehensive mapping of S. rostratus distribution in the Mediterranean Sea, which revealed sporadic occurrences in the eastern Mediterranean and an absence in the north Adriatic Sea. Morphometric data provided insights into the reproductive characteristics of S. rostratus. The study highlights the ecological significance of the Strait of Sicily (Central Mediterranean Sea) for the species, indicating it as a likely spawning area, and underscores the impact of the interactions between sharks and pelagic drifting swordfish fisheries in the Mediterranean, which result in increased mortality rates for threatened shark and ray species. Prioritizing conservation measures for endangered elasmobranch populations is crucial for maintaining marine ecosystem balance and ensuring fishery resource sustainability.

Aside from the most notorious threats, the Mediterranean Sea faces novel and poorly explored impacts from artificial light at night (ALAN), which influences natural light–dark cycles and affects marine ecosystems. This study investigates the impact of ALAN on coastal infralittoral assemblages in Malta, where such effects remain unexplored. Using Baited Remote Underwater Videos (BRUVs), we examined the influence of different light intensities on species assemblages and behaviour at two sites: a light-polluted harbour and a darker reef area. Our findings reveal significant differences in fish community composition between light treatments and habitats. Among the 23,955 individuals recorded across multiple taxa, Boops boops accounted for 80% of observations. From our results, light intensity had a more substantial impact on community structure than habitat type, with species-specific responses to light. Predatory species such as Trachurus trachurus displayed increased activity under high-intensity white light, while Apogon imberbis and Serranus scriba were more abundant under red light, irrespective of habitat. These results underscore the role of ALAN in altering marine community dynamics and emphasise the need for sustainable management strategies to mitigate its impact on the biodiversity of the Mediterranean. This study provides initial empirical evidence of ALAN’s effects in Maltese waters, contributing to broader efforts to understand and manage light pollution in marine ecosystems.

This study addresses the challenge of accurately identifying fish species by using machine learning and image classification techniques. The primary aim is to develop an innovative algorithm that can dynamically identify the most common (within Maltese coastal waters) invasive Mediterranean fish species based on available images. In particular, these include Fistularia commersonii, Lobotes surinamensis, Pomadasys incisus, Siganus luridus, and Stephanolepis diaspros, which have been adopted as this study’s target species. Through the use of machine-learning models and transfer learning, the proposed solution seeks to enable precise, on-the-spot species recognition. The methodology involved collecting and organising images as well as training the models with consistent datasets to ensure comparable results. After trying a number of models, ResNet18 was found to be the most accurate and reliable, with YOLO v8 following closely behind. While the performance of YOLO was reasonably good, it exhibited less consistency in its results. These results underline the potential of the developed algorithm to significantly aid marine biology research, including citizen science initiatives, and promote environmental management efforts through accurate fish species identification.

All three species of angelsharks that inhabit the Mediterranean Sea, Squatina aculeata Cuvier, 1829; Squatina oculata Bonaparte, 1840; and Squatina squatina (Linnaeus, 1758), are classified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, since their populations have suffered severe decline and range reduction, mainly due to fishing pressure. The presently reported study aims to further update records of S. aculeata and S. oculata in the basin in order to achieve a clearer picture of their current status and geographical distribution. In this way, we were able to add a contribution to our knowledge about their biological characteristics. Records on the incidental capture and observation of specimens of S. aculeata and S. oculata between 2005 and 2022 were collected through the input of alerted professional fishermen, fisher amateurs, and specialist observers on fishery landings or on board in the context of specific surveying programs as well as of citizens’ science initiatives. Biological characters such as total length, total weight, sex, and maturity were determined whenever possible. A total of 18 S. aculeata and 34 S. oculata specimens were recorded. Data corroborate the current occurrence, which is almost rare, of these two Critically Endangered elasmobranchs from the central to the east part of the basin, revealing furthermore the presence of S. aculeata in Sardinian waters, in the western part of the basin. Data document the important habitats for both species existing in the Strait of Sicily, especially in the area around Malta, and confirm the occurrence of S. aculeata in the southern Aegean Sea. The current presence of both species is also established in Mediterranean Egyptian waters. Our study suggests the urgent need for a wider application and/or reinforcement of existing protection measures for these angelshark species and their habitat, including populations of the southern Mediterranean waters.

The ever-accelerating rate of research focusing on the issue of underwater noise pollution, particularly concerning low-frequency, continuous noise, has steadily been unveiling the myriad of detrimental ecological implications caused to marine life. Despite this, many European Member States, such as Malta, still lack solid monitoring and regulatory frameworks aimed at characterising and improving the state of the marine acoustic environment and achieving ‘Good Ecological Status’ in accordance with the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. This shortcoming is directly reflected in the complete absence of baseline information covering the quality of the national soundscape. This paper aims to serve as a preliminary investigation into continuous underwater noise generation within Maltese waters, focusing on two sites characterised by heavy marine activity: Ċirkewwa and the Grand Harbour. Digital signal processing software packages (dBWav version 1.3.4) were used to extract and analyse sound pressure levels from in situ recorded audio files. Further statistical analysis was also carried out so as to evaluate the resultant snapshot of the baseline marine soundscapes at both sites. Furthermore, AIS data were used to tentatively identify the identifiable sources of underwater noise pollution. Given the current information lacuna revolving around the issue of underwater noise pollution in Malta, this paper may serve as a pilot study, with the aim of bridging this knowledge gap and forming the basis of future national research for Maltese marine conservation.

Habitat fragmentation (HF) is an ecological process, which is potentially also one of the main causes of diversity loss. Many studies have debated the best tools to adopt for assessing the effects of HF. The traditional application of biodiversity metrics might not fully describe the biotic community associated to a particular habitat or the ongoing ecological processes. The community-weighted mean (CWM) seems to be a valid investigation index, since biological traits (BTs) of the associated community are selected by local environmental factors. Furthermore, by combining species with common BTs into Functional Groups (FGs), it is possible to account for ecological functions that are supported by the inclusion of the response of key species within the same context. In our case study, we investigated the possible effect of HF of different Sicilian vermetid reefs on the associated infralittoral fish community based on the (i) vermetid fragmentation level, (ii) nature of the infralittoral substratum and (iii) conservational level of protection. We expected HF to be the main factor in shaping the local fish community; however, the nature of the infralittoral substratum proved to be the principal driver of the ichthyofaunal community. By analysing separately the two infralittoral substrata considered in the study, we observed how HF might affect the associated fish community differently. A pristine vermetid reef seems to sustain a higher number of FGs when established on a rocky substratum. On the other hand, in the presence of a sandy substratum, a fragmented vermetid reef seems to attract a more functionally rich fish community than those accounted for a pristine status. Our results provide some evidence in support of the need to include a broad spectrum of community function descriptors for a more comprehensive characterisation of a habitat and for the assessment of the functioning of its ecosystem.

The management of biological invasions is among the most urgent of global challenges and requires a significant monitoring effort to obtain the information needed to take the appropriate decisions. To complement standard monitoring, citizen science is increasingly being used. Within citizen science, the approach of collecting and investigating Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) proved to be useful in the monitoring of non-native species. A LEK survey was carried out in 10 Sicilian and Maltese Natura 2000 sites in order to help in the early detection of non-native species. The survey was addressed to local fishers and SCUBA divers in order to investigate the occurrence of 24 selected marine non-native species and to identify potential hotspot areas of invasion through the use of six indicators: the occurrence of newly introduced nonindigenous species, the cumulative impacts of invasive alien species (CIMPAL) and the relative importance of species on the cumulative impacts (D1, D2, D3, and D4). The respondents confirmed the presence of 22 species since the year 2000 and reported 10 new ones registered in the investigated areas. The highest CIMPAL value was observed in two Sicilian Natura 2000 sites (ITA090028 and ITA040014) and the lowest on the western coast of Malta (MT0000101, MT0000102, MT0000103, and MT0000104) The four top-priority species according to indicators D1–D4 were Caulerpa cylindracea, C. taxifolia, Siganus luridus and S. rivulatus. The study produced a valid and useful scientific output to suggest and address management strategies to monitor the establishment of the non-native species.

The occurrence of the pharaoh cardinalfish, Apogonichthyoides pharaonis (Bellotti, 1874), is documented for the first time from the Libyan waters, after two subsequent findings reported in September and November 2020 in the far eastern region of the country. The location of these findings represents the westernmost area of distribution in the southern Mediterranean for this species, which has the western Indian Ocean and Red Sea origin and which entered into the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal.

Bathymetric information has become essential to help maintain and operate coastal zones. Traditional in situ bathymetry mapping using echo sounders is inefficient in shallow waters and operates at a high logistical cost. On the other hand, lidar mapping provides an efficient means of mapping coastal areas. However, this comes at a high acquisition cost as well. In comparison, satellite-derived bathymetry (SDB) provides a more cost-effective way of mapping coastal regions, albeit at a lower resolution. This work utilises all three of these methods collectively, to obtain accurate bathymetric depth data of two pocket beaches, Golden Bay and Għajn Tuffieħa, located in the northwestern region of Malta. Using the Google Earth Engine platform, together with Sentinel-2 data and collected in situ measurements, an empirical pre-processing workflow for estimating SDB was developed. Four different machine learning algorithms which produced differing depth accuracies by calibrating SDBs with those derived from alternative techniques were tested. Thus, this study provides an insight into the depth accuracy that can be achieved for shallow coastal regions using SDB techniques.

Olena Maiakovska et al. provide whole-genome sequencing of the parthenogenetic and invasive marbled crayfish and develop a computational framework for data analysis of monoclonal genomes. These data and methodology allow the authors to demonstrate genetic separation between two populations and provide the first size estimate for a marbled crayfish colony, which they used to model population growth patterns.

Remote-sensing ocean colour studies have already been used to determine coastal water quality, coastal biodiversity, and nutrient availability. In recent years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with multispectral sensors, originally designed for agriculture applications, have also enabled water-quality studies of coastal waters. However, since the sea surface is constantly changing, commonly used photogrammetric methods fail when applied to UAV images captured over water areas. In this work, we evaluate the applicability of a five-band multispectral sensor mounted on a UAV to derive scientifically valuable water parameters such as chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration and total suspended solids (TSS), including a new Python workflow for the manual generation of an orthomosaic in aquatic areas exclusively based on the sensor’s metadata. We show water-quality details in two different sites along the Maltese coastline on the centimetre-scale, improving the existing approximations that are available for the region through Sentinel-3 OLCI imagery at a much lower spatial resolution of 300 m. The Chl-a and TSS values derived for the studied regions were within the expected ranges and varied between 0 to 3 mg/m3 and 10 to 20 mg/m3, respectively. Spectral comparisons were also carried out along with some statistics calculations such as RMSE, MAE, or bias in order to validate the obtained results.

The silver-cheeked toadfish (Lagocephalus sceleratus, from the pufferfish family Tetraodontidae) and the Pacific red lionfish (Pterois miles, family Scorpaenidae) have recently invaded the Mediterranean Sea. Lagocephalus sceleratus has spread throughout this entire sea with the highest concentrations in the eastern basin, while more recently, Pterois miles has spread from the Eastern to the Central Mediterranean Sea. Their effects on local biodiversity and fisheries are cause for management concern. Here, a comprehensive review of predators of these two species from their native Indo-Pacific and invaded Mediterranean and Western Atlantic ranges is presented. Predators of Tetraodontidae in general were reviewed for their native Indo-Pacific and Western Atlantic ranges, as no records were found specifically for L. sceleratus in its native range. Tetraodontidae predators in their native ranges included mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda), lizardfish (Synodus spp.), tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier), lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris), sea snakes (Enhydrina spp.), catfish (Arius spp.), cobia (Rachycentron canadum), skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis), and common octopus (Octopus vulgaris). The only reported predator of adult L. sceleratus in the Mediterranean was loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta), whereas juvenile L. sceleratus were preyed by common dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus) and garfish (Belone belone). Conspecific cannibalism of L. sceleratus juveniles was also confirmed in the Mediterranean. Pufferfish predators in the Western Atlantic included common octopus, frogfish (Antennaridae), and several marine birds. Predators of all lionfish species in their native Indo-Pacific range included humpback scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis spp.), bobbit worms (Eunice aphroditois), moray eels (Muraenidae), and bluespotted cornetfish (Fistularia commersonii). Lionfish predators in the Mediterranean included dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus), white grouper (Epinephelus aeneus), common octopus, and L. sceleratus, whereas in the Western Atlantic included the spotted moray (Gymnothorax moringa), multiple grouper species (tiger Mycteroperca tigris, Nassau Epinephelus striatus, black Mycteroperca bonaci, red Epinephelus morio, and gag Mycteroperca microleps; Epinephelidae), northern red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus), greater amberjack (Seriola dumerilli), and nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum). The sparse data found on natural predation for these species suggest that population control via predation may be limited. Their population control may require proactive, targeted human removals, as is currently practiced with lionfish in the Western Atlantic.

A prerequisite for ecotourism development is the presence of natural environments, normally exhibited in protected areas, which serve as ecotourism venues. Little attention has been given to Mediterranean islands in terms of ecotourism. In this paper, nine islands in the central Mediterranean region were studied through a case study approach to investigate their potential as ecotourism destinations, taking into account the presence of protected areas and related aspects, including spatial dimensions and quality, to fulfil ecotourists. Larger islands with higher population densities were found to experience habitat fragmentation, and protected areas were thus in some cases relatively small and dispersed. In contrast, smaller, less populated islands were found to be more ideal ecotourism destinations due to limited anthropogenic impact and their capacity to fulfil the expectations of the ‘true specialists’, also known as ‘hard ecotourists’. Quality of ecotourism venues was found to affect ecotourist satisfaction. Ideal ecotourism sites on heavily impacted islands were found on the island periphery, in coastal and marine locations, with marine ecotourism serving as the ideal ecotourism product on such islands.

Macroalgal forests are one of the most productive and valuable marine ecosystems, but yet strongly exposed to fragmentation and loss. Detailed large-scale information on their distribution is largely lacking, hindering conservation initiatives. In this study, a systematic effort to combine spatial data on Cystoseira C. Agardh canopies (Fucales, Phaeophyta) was carried out to develop a Habitat Suitability Model (HSM) at Mediterranean scale, providing critical tools to improve site prioritization for their management, restoration and protection. A georeferenced database on the occurrence of 20 Cystoseira species was produced collecting all the available information from published and grey literature, web data portals and co-authors personal data. Data were associated to 55 predictor variable layers in the (ASCII) raster format and were used in order to develop the HSM by means of a Random Forest, a very effective Machine Learning technique. Knowledge about the distribution of Cystoseira canopies was available for about the 14% of the Mediterranean coastline. Absence data were available only for the 2% of the basin. Despite these gaps, our HSM showed high accuracy levels in reproducing Cystoseira distribution so that the first continuous maps of the habitat across the entire basin was produced. Misclassification errors mainly occurred in the eastern and southern part of the basin, where large gaps of knowledge emerged. The most relevant drivers were the geomorphological ones, followed by anthropogenic variables proxies of pollution and urbanization. Our model shows the importance of data sharing to combine a large number of spatial and environmental data, allowing to individuate areas with high probability of Cystoseira occurrence as suitable for its presence. This approach encourages the use of this modeling tool for the prediction of Cystoseira distribution and for supporting and planning conservation and management initiatives. The step forward is to refine the spatial information of presence-absence data about Cystoseira canopies and of environmental predictors in order to address species-specific assessments.

At the behest of the Green Deal, circular economy concepts are currently being widely promoted, not least within the aquaculture sector. The current study aims to demonstrate the technical feasibility of extracting collagen and fish oils from waste Atlantic bluefin tuna biomass originating from the Maltese aquaculture industry. For collagen, a three-stage methodology, consisting of pre-treatment, extraction, and retrieval, was applied to biomass originating from bone, skin, muscle, and internal organs (offal) in order to extract both acid-soluble collagen (ASC) and pepsin-soluble collagen (PSC). The chemical identity of the extracted collagen was confirmed through the conduction of hydroxyproline and SDS-PAGE tests as well as through FTIR, whilst the extracted collagen was also tested for its microbiological and heavy metal profiles. The collagen yield was found to be highest for skin tissue and for PSC-based protocols and is comparable to the yield cited in the literature for other tuna species. Oils were extracted through low temperature, high temperature, and enzymatic means. The fatty acid profile of the extracted oils was assessed using GC-FID; this indicated high proportions of EPA and DHA. Yield indicated that the enzymatic extraction of oil is most effective. High heat and the presence of iron-containing muscle starting material promote oxidation and rancidity. Further effort into the optimization of both collagen and lipid extraction protocols must be invested, with a special focus on the production of high-value fractions that are much closer to the quality required for human use/consumption.

There is no sign of saturation in accumulation of alien species (AS) introductions worldwide, additionally the rate of spread for some species has also been shown to be increasing. However, the challenges of gathering information on AS are recognized. Recent developments in citizen science (CS) provide an opportunity to improve data flow and knowledge on AS while ensuring effective and high quality societal engagement with the issue of IAS (Invasive Alien Species). Advances in technology, particularly on-line recording and smartphone apps, along with the development of social media, have revolutionized CS and increased connectivity while new and innovative analysis techniques are emerging to ensure appropriate management, visualization, interpretation and use and sharing of the data. In early July 2018 we launched a European CO-operation in Science and Technology (COST) Action to address multidisciplinary research questions in relation to developing and implementing CS, advancing scientific understanding of AS dynamics while informing decision-making specifically implementation of technical requirements of relevant legislation such as the EU Regulation 1143/2014 on IAS. It will also support the EU biodiversity goals and embedding science within society. The Action will explore and document approaches to establishing a European-wide CS AS network. It will embrace relevant innovations for data gathering and reporting to support the implementation of monitoring and surveillance measures, while ensuring benefits for society and citizens, through an AS CS European network. The Action will, therefore, increase levels of participation and quality of engagement with current CS initiatives, ensuring and evaluating educational value, and improve the value outcomes for potential users including citizens, scientists, alien species managers, policy-makers, local authorities, industry and other stakeholders.

Giordan Lighthouse, located on the island of Gozo in the Malta-Sicily Channel within the central Mediterranean region, is ideally located to study the primary sources of atmospheric pollution. A total of 10 years of data have been accumulated from the reactive gas and greenhouse gas detectors and the aerosol analyzers found at this Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) regional station. The data has been evaluated, resulting in trends in emissions from shipping recorded within the same region coming to the fore. The other source of emissions that was evident within the recorded data originated from Mt. Etna, located on the island of Sicily and representing the highest active volcano in Europe. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of ship emissions on trace gases and aerosol background measurements at Giordan Lighthouse, including the putative influence of COVID-19 on the same emissions. The model used to evaluate ship emissions was the Ship Traffic Emission Assessment Model (STEAM). From trace gas measurements at Giordan Lighthouse, a slowly decreasing trend in sulfur oxide (SOx) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions was noted. To better understand the air quality results obtained, the STEAM model was fed, as an input, an Automatic Identification System (AIS) dataset to describe the vessel activity in the area concerned. This study also investigates the effects of the COVID19 pandemic on marine traffic patterns within the area and any corresponding changes in the air quality. Such an analysis was carried out through the use of SENTINEL 5 data.

Science is addressing global societal challenges, and due to limitations in research financing, scientists are turning to the public at large to jointly tackle specific environmental issues. Citizens are therefore increasingly involved in monitoring programs, appointed as citizen scientists with potential to delivering key data at near to no cost to address environmental challenges, therein fostering scientific knowledge and advising policy- and decision-makers. One of the first and most successful examples of marine citizen science in the Mediterranean is represented by the integrative and collaborative implementation of several jellyfish-spotting campaigns in Italy, Spain, Malta, and Tunisia starting in 2009. Altogether, in terms of time coverage, geographic extent, and number of citizen records, these represent the most effective marine citizen science campaigns thus far implemented in the Mediterranean Sea. Here, we analyzed a collective database merging records over the above four countries, featuring more than 100,000 records containing almost 25,000 observations of jellyfish specimens collected over a period of 3 to 7 years (from 2009 to 2015) by citizen scientists participating in any of the national citizen science programs included in this analysis. Such a wide citizen science exercise demonstrates a valuable and cost-effective tool to understanding ecological drivers of jellyfish proliferation over the Western and Central Mediterranean basins, as well as a powerful contribution to developing tailored adaptation and management strategies; mitigating jellyfish impacts on human activities in coastal zones; and supporting implementation of marine spatial planning, Blue Growth, and conservation strategies.

Cumulative human impacts have led to the degradation of marine ecosystems and the decline of biodiversity in the European and contiguous seas. Effective conservation measures are urgently needed to reverse these trends. Conservation must entail societal choices, underpinned by human values and worldviews that differ between the countries bordering these seas. Social, economic and political heterogeneity adds to the challenge of balancing conservation with sustainable use of the seas. Comprehensive macro-regional coordination is needed to ensure effective conservation of marine ecosystems and biodiversity of this region. Under the European Union Horizon 2020 framework programme, the MarCons COST action aims to promote collaborative research to support marine management, conservation planning and policy development. This will be achieved by developing novel methods and tools to close knowledge gaps and advance marine conservation science. This action will provide support for the development of macro-regional and national policies through six key actions: to develop tools to analyse cumulative human impacts; to identify critical scientific and technical gaps in conservation efforts; to improve the resilience of the marine environment to global change and biological invasions; to develop frameworks for integrated conservation planning across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments; to coordinate marine conservation policy across national boundaries; and to identify effective governance approaches for marine protected area management. Achieving the objectives of these actions will facilitate the integration of marine conservation policy into macro-regional maritime spatial planning agendas for the European and contiguous seas, thereby offsetting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in this region.

The Mediterranean community represented in this paper is the result of more than 30 years of EU and nationally funded coordination, which has led to key contributions in science concepts and operational initiatives. Together with the establishment of operational services, the community has coordinated with universities, research centers, research infrastructures and private companies to implement advanced multi-platform and integrated observing and forecasting systems that facilitate the advancement of operational services, scientific achievements and mission-oriented innovation. Thus, the community can respond to societal challenges and stakeholders needs, developing a variety of fit-for-purpose services such as the Copernicus Marine Service. The combination of state-of-the-art observations and forecasting provides new opportunities for downstream services in response to the needs of the heavily populated Mediterranean coastal areas and to climate change. The challenge over the next decade is to sustain ocean observations within the research community, to monitor the variability at small scales, e.g., the mesoscale/submesoscale, to resolve the sub-basin/seasonal and inter-annual variability in the circulation, and thus establish the decadal variability, understand and correct the model-associated biases and to enhance model-data integration and ensemble forecasting for uncertainty estimation. Better knowledge and understanding of the level of Mediterranean variability will enable a subsequent evaluation of the impacts and mitigation of the effect of human activities and climate change on the biodiversity and the ecosystem, which will support environmental assessments and decisions. Further challenges include extending the science-based added-value products into societal relevant downstream services and engaging with communities to build initiatives that will contribute to the 2030 Agenda and more specifically to SDG14 and the UN's Decade of Ocean Science for sustainable development, by this contributing to bridge the science-policy gap. The Mediterranean observing and forecasting capacity was built on the basis of community best practices in monitoring and modeling, and can serve as a basis for the development of an integrated global ocean observing system.

In recent years, citizen science campaigns have provided a very good platform for widespread data collection. Within the marine domain, jellyfish are among the most commonly deployed species for citizen reporting purposes. The timely validation of submitted jellyfish reports remains challenging, given the sheer volume of reports being submitted and the relative paucity of trained staff familiar with the taxonomic identification of jellyfish. In this work, hundreds of photos that were submitted to the “Spot the Jellyfish” initiative are used to train a group of region-based, convolution neural networks. The main aim is to develop models that can classify, and distinguish between, the five most commonly recorded species of jellyfish within Maltese waters. In particular, images of the Pelagia noctiluca, Cotylorhiza tuberculata, Carybdea marsupialis, Velella velella and salps were considered. The reliability of the digital architecture is quantified through the precision, recall, f1 score, and κ score metrics. Improvements gained through the applicability of data augmentation and transfer learning techniques, are also discussed. Very promising results, that support upcoming aspirations to embed automated classification methods within online services, including smart phone apps, were obtained. These can reduce, and potentially eliminate, the need for human expert intervention in validating citizen science reports for the five jellyfish species in question, thus providing prompt feedback to the citizen scientist submitting the report.

The Mediterranean Sea is home to over 2/3 of the world’s charter boat traffic and hosts an estimated 1.5 million recreational boats. Studies elsewhere have demonstrated marinas as important hubs for the stepping-stone transfer of non-indigenous species (NIS), but these unique anthropogenic, and typically artificial habitats have largely gone overlooked in the Mediterranean as sources of NIS hot-spots. From April 2015 to November 2016, 34 marinas were sampled across the following Mediterranean countries: Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus to investigate the NIS presence and richness in the specialized hard substrate material of these marina habitats. All macroinvertebrate taxa were collected and identified. Additionally, fouling samples were collected from approximately 600 boat-hulls from 25 of these marinas to determine if boats host diverse NIS not present in the marina. Here, we present data revealing that Mediterranean marinas indeed act as major hubs for the transfer of marine NIS, and we also provide evidence that recreational boats act as effective vectors of spread. From this wide-ranging geographical study, we report here numerous new NIS records at the basin, subregional, country and locality level. At the basin level, we report three NIS new to the Mediterranean Sea (Achelia sawayai sensu lato, Aorides longimerus, Cymodoce aff. fuscina), and the re-appearance of two NIS previously known but currently considered extinct in the Mediterranean (Bemlos leptocheirus, Saccostrea glomerata). We also compellingly update the distributions of many NIS in the Mediterranean Sea showing some recent spreading; we provide details for 11 new subregional records for NIS (Watersipora arcuata, Hydroides brachyacantha sensu lato and Saccostrea glomerata now present in the Western Mediterranean; Symplegma brakenhielmi, Stenothoe georgiana, Spirobranchus tertaceros sensu lato, Dendostrea folium sensu lato and Parasmittina egyptiaca now present in the Central Mediterranean, and W. arcuata, Bemlos leptocheirus and Dyspanopeus sayi in the Eastern Mediterranean). We also report 51 new NIS country records from recreational marinas: 12 for Malta, 10 for Cyprus, nine for Greece, six for Spain and France, five for Turkey and three for Italy, representing 32 species. Finally, we report 20 new NIS records (representing 17 species) found on recreational boat-hulls (mobile habitats), not yet found in the same marina, or in most cases, even the country. For each new NIS record, their native origin and global and Mediterranean distributions are provided, along with details of the new record. Additionally, taxonomic characters used for identification and photos of the specimens are also provided. These new NIS records should now be added to the relevant NIS databases compiled by several entities. Records of uncertain identity are also discussed, to assess the probability of valid non-indigenous status.

The increasing occurrence of the blue-spotted cornet fish Fistularia commersonii, a highly successfulLessepsian migrant, within coastal waters of Sicily and of the Maltese Islands is hereby recorded. Reports ofrecent sightings of the species within such a marine area are documented and these suggest the establishmentof viable populations for the species within the same marine area.

The littoral fauna of Maltese sandy and shingle beaches is generally regarded as impoverished and consequently of little conservation interest. The fauna of three sandy and three shingle beaches was systematically sampled by coring, standardised searching and pitfall traps. Diversity and population density were highest at the surface for sandy beaches, but were highest below the surface for shingle. The two beach types had distinct suites of species and individual beaches were faunistically distinct. Maltese sandy and shingle beaches are of conservation importance for their habitat-restricted species, some of which have limited local and regional distributions, and are internationally protected.