REPORT OF THE MID-TERM WORKSHOP ON TRANSBORAN PROJECT “TRANSBOUNDARY POPULATION STRUCTURE OF SARDINE, EUROPEAN HAKE AND BLACKSPOT SEABREAM IN THE ALBORAN SEA AND ADJACENT WATERS: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH”

The Workshop main objectives were to take stock of the work carried out during the first 18 months of functioning of the Transboran project and to provide orientation on the remaining tasks to be done to accomplish all the initial project objectives. The sampling process was assessed and found satisfactory with some minor shortcomings that were solved. The experts shared preliminary results of the different disciplines: genetic markers, morphometry (body and otoliths shape), meristics, microchemical composition, parasites, analysis of fishery data and life history traits and hydrodynamic modeling. The three techniques that have completed the analyses are: i) hake parasites, ii) fisheries information for hake, and iii) hydrodynamic simulations for blackspot seabream. The pace of the different analysis was uneven, depending of the technique with delays basically due to the bureaucratic burden. While some of the preliminary results for hake (parasites and fisheries data) suggest certain demographic segregation between north and south, final interpretation need to be done at the view of all analyses completed, which will provide complementary information of connectivity processes and segregation at different spatial scales.