Diel Variations in Demersal Fish Assemblages in the Strait of Sicily, 2017

The Strait of Sicily, central Mediterranean Sea, is the location for this dataset on day-night variations in demersal fish catches. It was collected via a six-day trawl survey in September 2017 on the shelf-break off southwestern Sicily, with seven hauls performed per day. The data was authored by Giacomo Sardo and is licensed for reuse under CC-BY-4.0.

Use Cases

• Modeling diel catch patterns for commercial species like Parapenaeus longirostris and Trachurus trachurus based on catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) data.
• Comparing species richness, dominance, and diversity metrics between nocturnal and diurnal assemblages as described.
• Informing fishing regulations by analyzing temporal activity peaks to minimize unwanted catch, as suggested in the description.

Strengths

• Data collection is temporally focused, covering a six-day survey in September 2017.
• Analysis identified two distinct assemblages (nocturnal and diurnal) using ANOSIM and PERMANOVA methods.
• Specific depth range (125–155 m) and geographic location (southwestern Sicily shelf-break) are documented.

Limitations

• The dataset is very small (34.0 KB), indicating limited scope and likely a small number of observations.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for statistical modeling.

Provenance

Source

Giacomo Sardo via figshare

Collection Method

Collected via a trawl survey with seven hauls per day distributed between daylight and darkness.

Time Range

September 2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-29 04:45:20; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Shelf-break off the southwestern coast of Sicily, central Mediterranean Sea