engleski

THE CROATIAN SEA CUCUMBER FISHERY: COLLECTING ONLY HOLOTHURIA TUBULOSA?

Having overexploited the western Pacific Ocean, the sea cucumber fishery has expanded to new regions of the world to supply the Asian market with this traditional delicacy. Sea cucumbers were removed from the Croatian marine protected species list in 2013, and 2017 marked the beginning of a commercial sea cucumber fishery in the Eastern Adriatic Sea. However, holothuroid species are difficult to distinguish, and the status of several taxa in the Mediterranean Sea has been a source of dispute for over a century. This is the first study to genetically analyze sea cucumbers in the Adriatic Sea. We used genetic barcoding of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) to verify the existence and estimate the relative abundance of Holothuria mammata Grube, 1840 in the eastern Adriatic Sea. Holothuria mammata is a species that has rarely been reported in this region and strongly resembles the common species Holothuria tubulosa Gmelin, 1791. In addition to specimens collected from the northern and central Adriatic, we barcoded a specimen previously identified as H. sp. cf. mammata based on its morphological characteristics (Zavodnik, 2003). While genetic analyses showed that Zavodnik’s specimen is actually H. tubulosa, 30% of the collected specimens were genetically identified as H. mammata. These results call into question the historically accepted sea cucumber assemblage in the Adriatic Sea, which regarded H. mammata as a rare species and generally disregarded its presence in large census studies. Such species distribution data are extremely important in developing and monitoring a sustainable fishery.

SEA CUCUMBER FISHERY, Holothuria

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