Future scenarios of marine resources and ecosystem conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean under the impacts of fishing, alien species and sea warming

Using a temporal-dynamic calibrated Ecosim food web model, we assess the effects of future changes on marine resources and ecosystem conditions of the Israeli Mediterranean continental shelf. This region has been intensely invaded by Indo-Pacific species. The region is exposed to extreme environmental conditions, is subjected to high rates of climate change and has experienced intense fishing pressure. We test the impacts of a new set of fishing regulations currently being implemented, a continued increase in sea temperatures following IPCC projections, and a continued increase in alien species biomass. We first investigate the impacts of the stressors separately, and then we combine them to evaluate their cumulative effects. Our results show overall potential future benefits of fishing effort reductions, and detrimental impacts of increasing sea temperature and increasing biomass of alien species. Cumulative scenarios suggest that the beneficial effects of fisheries reduction may be dampened by the impact of increasing sea temperature and alien species when acting together. These results illustrate the importance of including stressors other than fisheries, such as climate change and biological invasions, in an ecosystem-based management approach. These results support the need for reducing local and regional stressors, such as fishing and biological invasions, in order to promote resilience to sea warming.

A MSFD complementary approach for the assessment of pressures, knowledge and data gaps in Southern European Seas: The PERSEUS experience

PERSEUS project aims to identify the most relevant pressures exerted on the ecosystems of the Southern European Seas (SES), highlighting knowledge and data gaps that endanger the achievement of SES Good Environmental Status (GES) as mandated by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). A complementary approach has been adopted, by a meta-analysis of existing literature on pressure/impact/knowledge gaps summarized in tables related to the MSFD descriptors, discriminating open waters from coastal areas. A comparative assessment of the Initial Assessments (IAs) for five SES countries has been also independently performed. The comparison between meta-analysis results and IAs shows similarities for coastal areas only. Major knowledge gaps have been detected for the biodiversity, marine food web, marine litter and underwater noise descriptors. The meta-analysis also allowed the identification of additional research themes targeting research topics that are requested to the achievement of GES.

Psychosocial diagnosis in psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents

This study examines the relevance of a psychosocial diagnostic system developed by the World Health Organization (WHO; International Classification of Diseases [ICD] 10 axis V) for psychiatrically hospitalized inpatient adolescents and assesses the reliability of semistructured interviews for making these psychosocial diagnoses. Seventy-one consecutive patients admitted to an adolescent unit and their parents were interviewed. The semistructured interviews were derived from the criteria for each psychosocial (axis V) diagnosis. Inter-rater and test-retest reliability were measured for both child and parent interviews on a subsample of 57 and 25 subjects, respectively. Results showed high inter-rater reliability (kappa = 0.8 to 1.0). Some test-retest reliabilities were high and others were low (kappa = 0.4 to 1.0). Parent-child agreement was erratic (kappa = 0.2 to 0.7). All of the psychosocial diagnostic entities were common and relevant to our patient population. We conclude that it is possible to make reliable and relevant psychosocial diagnoses in severely ill adolescents.