Warming and salinization effects on the deep-water rose shrimp, Parapenaeus longirostris, distribution along the NW Mediterranean Sea: Implications for bottom trawl fisheries.

The deep-water rose shrimp is a main resource for the GSA 6 bottom trawling fleet. In the last decade, landings have increased without a clear understanding of the causes. This study aims to analyze this trend, potentially related to changes in environmental conditions. Results showed an increase in the species' landings, which spread northwards along the GSA 6. GAM models detected a significant effect of location, time, and depth on the distribution of the deep-water rose shrimp, as did for temperature and salinity. Similar values between landings and LPUE were found throughout, suggesting no effects of fishing effort in time. ANOVA tests showed a significant increase of sea bottom temperature and salinity in time, which were correlated with increasing LPUE values. Then, the trend seems to be related to environmental changes rather than changes in fishing effort. Further research is needed to implement management plans that ensure the resource sustainability.

Pain treatment and its cost in old people with dementia: a descriptive analysis from the Registry of Dementias of Girona (ReDeGi).

BACKGROUND: Pain prevalence is high among elderly people, and equally prevalent in those with dementia. The aim of this study was to describe the use analgesics, as well as the cost of these treatments in old people with dementia. METHODS: We used a cross-sectional design using 1186 cases registered by the Registry of Dementias of Girona from 2007 to 2008. All drugs were categorized following the Anatomic Therapeutic Chemical classification and grouped according to the World Health Organization (WHO) analgesic ladder steps. Descriptive statistical methods were used. RESULTS: Analgesics were prescribed to 78.6% (95% CI, 76.2-81.0) of the registered cases. Of them, 80.6% (95% CI, 78.0-83.2) were treated following step 1 of the WHO analgesic ladder, 16.8% (95% CI, 14.4-19.3) following step 2 and 2.6% (95% CI, 1.5-3.6) following step 3. Pain treatment in old people with dementia had a cost of 42.1 € per patient and year, with no significant differences depending on the subtype of dementia. CONCLUSIONS: The use of analgesics in our sample was not associated to age or to dementia severity, which are themselves risk factors for increased pain. Moreover, no differences were detected depending on the subtype of dementia.

Fisheries data management systems in the NW Mediterranean: from data collection to web visualization.

The European Union Data Collection Framework (DCF) states that scientific data-driven assessments are essential to achieve sustainable fisheries. To respond to the DCF call, this study introduces the information systems developed and used by Institut Català de Recerca per a la Governança del Mar (ICATMAR), the Catalan Institute of Research for the Governance of the Seas. The information systems include data from a biological monitoring, curation, processing, analysis, publication and web visualization for bottom trawl fisheries. Over the 4 years of collected data (2019-2022), the sampling program developed a dataset of over 1.1 million sampled individuals accounting for 24.6 tons of catch. The sampling data are ingested into a database through a data input website ensuring data management control and quality. The standardized metrics are automatically calculated and the data are published in the web visualizer, combined with fishing landings and Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) records. As the combination of remote sensing data with fisheries monitoring offers new approaches for ecosystem assessment, the collected fisheries data are also visualized in combination with georeferenced seabed habitats from the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet), climate and sea conditions from Copernicus Monitoring Environment Marine Service (CMEMS) on the web browser. Three public web-based products have been developed in the visualizer: geolocated bottom trawl samplings, biomass distribution per port or season and length-frequency charts per species. These information systems aim to fulfil the gaps in the scientific community, administration and civil society to access high-quality data for fisheries management, following the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR) principles, enabling scientific knowledge transfer. Database URL  https://icatmar.github.io/VISAP/(www.icatmar.cat).

Fishing for litter, accidental catch in bottom trawl nets along the Catalan coast, Northwestern Mediterranean.

The seafloor of the Mediterranean Sea accumulates marine litter (ML), an area where bottom trawlers operate and can accidentally catch the litter from the seafloor. This study aims to describe and quantify the ML caught by bottom trawlers along the Catalan coast (NW Mediterranean Sea) and estimate the potential of the bottom trawl fleet to extract ML from the area as a Fishing for Litter (FFL) initiative to tackle the ML issue. Marine litter was collected from commercial trawlers and was classified as metal, plastic, rubber, textile, wood, and other waste and weighed (kg) from 305 hauls performed during three years (2019-2021) from 9 different ports at 3 different depths. ML was present in 97 % of the hauls, with plastic being the most abundant material. The composition varied according to zone, port and depth, with the highest densities found in highly urbanized areas (13.75 ± 3.25 kg km-2), which mainly contained plastics (74.3 %). The port of Barcelona had the highest presence of plastics (23.62 ± 6.49 kg km-2), mainly wet wipes. Regarding depth, the continental shelf had the highest density of ML, with 12.24 ± 2.40 kg km-2. The potential ML removal (t year-1) was calculated using fishing effort (hours). It is estimated that the bottom trawlers may potentially remove 237 ± 36 t year-1 of ML in the Catalan coast. FFL initiatives should be part of a multidisciplinary approach to tackle marine litter, which must include prevention, monitoring, and cleaning actions.

Central nervous system drug consumption depending on the time between symptom onset and the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: an analysis by the Registry of Dementias of Girona.

AIMS: To describe central nervous system (CNS) drug consumption patterns depending on the time to diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and to check whether the cases diagnosed later are associated with greater severity and consuming more CNS drugs. METHODS: Cross-sectional study using 952 cases of the Registry of Dementias of Girona. A binary logistic regression was used to detect variables associated with the use of CNS drugs depending on the time to diagnosis. RESULTS: CNS drugs were consumed by 95.8% of the AD patients. Only antipsychotics presented a statistically significant increase in the frequency of prescription to patients with longer time elapsed from symptom onset to AD diagnosis. CONCLUSION: Longer time elapsed from the onset of symptoms to the diagnosis resulted in increased probability of antipsychotic consumption.

COVID-19 lockdown moderately increased oligotrophy at a marine coastal site.

COVID-19 has led to global population lockdowns that have had indirect effects on terrestrial and marine fauna, yet little is known on their effects on marine planktonic communities. We analysed the effect of the spring 2020 lockdown in a marine coastal area in Blanes Bay, NW Mediterranean. We compared a set of 23 oceanographic, microbial and biogeochemical variables sampled right after the strict lockdown in Spain, with data from the previous 15 years after correcting for long-term trends. Our analysis shows a series of changes in the microbial communities which may have been induced by the combination of the decreased nitrogen atmospheric load, the lower wastewater flux and the reduced fishing activity in the area, among other factors. In particular, we detected a slight decrease beyond the long-term trend in chlorophyll a, in the abundance of several microbial groups (phototrophic nanoflagellates and total prokaryotes) and in prokaryotic activity (heterotrophic prokaryotic production and ß-glucosidase activity) which, as a whole, resulted in a moderate increase of oligotrophy in Blanes Bay after the lockdown.