IMPACT OF THE CLIMATIC CHANGE ON THE ADRIATIC SEA ECOSYSTEM

This study explains variations of Adriatic fish and cephalopods landing data in relation to the changeable atmosphere over the northern hemisphere, which is synchronized with regional Adriatic Sea atmospheric patterns and local sea conditions, from 1961 to 2003. Fish-cephalopods landing data is subject to principal component analysis, and 4 significant components are extracted describing the similarity between Cephalopoda, Merluccius merluccius, Mullus barbatus, and Thunnus thynnus, between Boops boops and Spicara smaris, and between Sardina pilchardus and Sarpa salpa. The last component describes the variation of only one species, Scomber japonicus. Relating principal components to environmental data using the correlation technique, significant correlation with regional atmospheric forcing and hemispheric climate was found. For the most abundant pelagic fish, Sardina pilchardus and for Sarpa salpa (both described by the same principal component), first-differencing was used to remove autocorrelation. The same procedure is performed on environmental data, and using the lag correlation coefficient. the dependence between fish-cephalopods and environmental data was established. The highest-lagged correlation coefficients of the fish species are found with the wind intensity and primary production.