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Quality assessment of escaping silver eel (Anguilla anguilla L.) to support management and conservation strategies in Mediterranean coastal lagoons

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Abstract

Silver eel samples, collected from the lagoons of Fogliano and Caprolace (Italy), were investigated for a broad range of contaminants (29 polychlorinated biphenyls, 9 polybrominated diphenyl ethers, 5 dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, 5 chlordanes, hexachlorobenzene, 3 hexachlorocyclohexane, and 5 metals). Concentrations of targeted compounds stand for a general low contamination pattern. Infestation by Anguillicola crassus and virus infections were also examined. No parasite infestation was found, while infected silver eels had a low prevalence for EVEX, and, for the first time in the Mediterranean area, for AngHV-1. Overall, a good quality status of escaping silver eels, for both lagoons, was highlighted by the use of integrative Indexes. A quality assessment of the ecological status of the two lagoons was carried out developing an expert judgment approach, in order to characterize the habitat of eel stocks. A Final Pressure Index was derived, whose values showed an overall limited global anthropogenic impact acting on both lagoons. Results stand for the suitability of an integrated approach to assess lagoon habitats and eel local stocks quality. This could be proposed as a tool to identify sites yielding high quality eel spawners in the Mediterranean region, in order to set up suitable management frameworks, providing elements to appraise and discuss the potential of coastal lagoons in the Mediterranean region towards the recovery of the eel global stock.

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Acknowledgements

he authors thank the Circeo National Park and the Ufficio Territoriale Carabinieri per la Biodiversità di Fogliano (UTCB) for their willingness to support eel research and management by the Local Eel Management Plan within the EU EFF Project (code 3/BA/12-LA). The authors also acknowledge the support of Massimo Cecchetti and Andrea Fusari during eel sampling.

Funding

This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policy within the Research Project LAGURES (grant n. J88C13001250001) under the scientific supervision of EC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro di ricerca “Zootecnia e Acquacoltura” - Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA), Monterotondo, RM, Italy

    Fabrizio Capoccioni, Giovanna De Matteis, Michela Contò & Sebastiana Failla

  2. Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy

    Chiara Leone, Lorenzo Tancioni & Eleonora Ciccotti

  3. Institute for Nature and Forest Research (INBO), Linkebeek, Belgium

    Claude Belpaire

  4. Toxicological Centre, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium

    Govindan Malarvannan, Giulia Poma & Adrian Covaci

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  1. Fabrizio Capoccioni
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Correspondence to Fabrizio Capoccioni.

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Capoccioni, F., Leone, C., Belpaire, C. et al. Quality assessment of escaping silver eel (Anguilla anguilla L.) to support management and conservation strategies in Mediterranean coastal lagoons. Environ Monit Assess 192, 570 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08533-6

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