Publication Reports Cooperative Research Report (CRR)

 

Following recommendations of the Pelagic Fish Committee in 1976, 1977 and. 1978, the members of the Working Group
continued the collection of data on the development of the bluefin tuna fisheries in the North Atlantic and adjacent seas.

Reports of the ICES Advisory Committee on Fishery Management, 1980. Including a list of Committee Members, 1979/1980.

The Working Group was established at the 1978 Annual Meeting of ICES in response to a request to the Council from the Canadian Government for information on the state of the fisheries and stocks of North Atlantic salmon.

Report based on the proceedings of an ad hoc ICES Working Group, set up to consider what scientific studies can and should be initiated in relation to spills of oil at sea.

Responding to a request from the Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) of the Oslo and Paris Commissions for ICES to conduct intercalibration exercises for analyses of mercury, cadmium and PCBs in living organisms and sea water. 

The Committee has been established by ICES with the task to formulate on behalf of the Council scientific advice on marine
pollution and its effects on living resources to Member Governments and to regulatory Commissions.

A report and interpretation of the ICES fourth organochlorine intercalibration exercise, with twenty-three replies out of twenty-four participants having been received.

An intercomparison of petroleum hydrocarbon analyses has been conducted for samples of crude oil, marine sediment and mussel homogenate. Results have been submitted by twenty-six labs in eleven countries.

Reports of the ICES Advisory Committee on Fishery Management, 1982. Includes a list of Committee Members, 1981/82.

Working Group convened after a request by the Government of Canada and the EEC Commission for scientific advice on aspects of the population dynamics and state of the harp and hooded seal stocks in the Northwest Atlantic.

Laboratory technique intercalibrations connected to the organisation of an international baseline study of trace metals dissolved in the waters of the ICNAF and Oslo Commission areas of the North Atlantic.

One of a number of research tasks considered to be essential for increasing our understanding of the Baltic Sea system in relation to pollution problems, proposed by the ICES/SCOR Working Group on the Study of the Pollution of the Baltic.

Reports of two ICES Working Groups, chaired by Dr J.G. Shepherd, established to examine the methodology used in the assessment of fishery resources and the provision of scientific information and advice on their conservation and management.

The Committee was established by ICES with the task of formulating, on behalf of the Council, scientific advice on marine pollution and its effects on living resources to Member Governments and to Regulatory Commissions.

Workshop stemmed from interest and concern about how
processes of a physical, chemical and biological nature influence
the transfer through the coastal zone of contaminants from
land-based sources.

Reports of the ICES Advisory Committee on Fishery Management, 1985. Includes list of Committee Members, 1984/1985.

The Seagoing Workshop on Methodology of Fish Disease Surveys took place on board RV II Anton Dohrn" from 3-12 January 1984.

The Committee was established by ICES with the task of formulating, on behalf of the Council, scientific advice on marine pollution and its effects on living resources to the Member Governments and to Regulatory Commissions.

Member countries of ICES submitted the results of their analyses for certain contaminants in samples of fish and shellfish, collected annually from a number of specified areas in the North Atlantic.

This number presents the reports of two ICES Working Groups set
up by the Council to appraise the state of seal stocks in the
Baltic and Greenland Sea areas, respectively.

The Committee was established by ICES with the task of formulating, on behalf of the Council, scientific advice on marine pollution and its effects on living resources to the Member Governments and to Regulatory Commissions.

A request was made to the ICES Marine Chemistry Working Group (MCWG) by the Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) of the Oslo and Paris Commissions in 1985 for the conduct of an intercalibration exercise for trace metals in estuarine waters

Following the adopted Resolution CR 1985/2:37 (73rd Statutory Meeting of ICES), CR
1986/2:36 (74th Statutory Meeting) an ad hoc Study Group on the "Environmental Impacts of
Mariculture" was established in order to: (a) delineate the dimensions of the problem, and (b)
recommend a course of action which will lead to a development of criteria and to a standard
system of monitoring and reporting." Membership to this ad hoc ICES Study Group was assigned
during 1986 with experts nominated from 11 member countries. The Study Group worked by
correspondence and met in Hamburg (Federal Republic of Germany) between April 7 and 9,
1987 to prepare the report. The environmental issues addressed include (a) our present
understanding of the effects of mariculture on natural microbial communities and on the
possible spread of pathogens, (b) the possible changes in the natural populations of marine algae
(phytoplankton and macroalgae), (c) the influence of sedimentation on the benthos, (d) the use
of chemicals in mariculture, (e) site selection criteria to minimize environmental effects, and
(f) the state of the art in developing predictive models of mariculture impacts. Further
chapters discuss environmental regulations (as applied to mariculture situations) in various
member countries, the need for improved feeds and feeding strategies, and the possible
beneficial effects of mariculture. Finally, a number of recommendations are formulated, related
to research needs to assess and minimize environmental impacts. Considering the increasing
environmental issues that are emerging with the expansion of the mariculture industry, the
establishment of an ICES Working Group on "Environmental Impact of Mariculture" is proposed
and the terms of references for such a Working Group are presented. Country reports are
presented in Appendix 1 and an extended literature list is included in Appendix 3.

This Cooperative Research Report contains papers presented at an interdisciplinary
session on Water Quality Modelling held during the Statutory
Meeting of ICES at Santander in October 1987. It is my last but delightful task
as the convener of this session to outline the idea and purpose of the session,
and of this report, respectively.

The Advisory Committee on Marine Pollution (ACMP) was established
by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea with
the task of formulating, on behalf of the Council, scientific advice
on marine pollution and its effects on living resources to
the Member Governments and to Regulatory Commissions. In its
work, the ACMP considers, among other things, the results of work
carried out in relevant ICES Working Groups (which also report to
their respective Standing Committees during the annual Statutory
Meetings). It is a firm procedure within the Council that reports
of other subsidiary bodies concerned with pollution pass the
ACMP.
The ACMP consists of a number of scientists acting when they
work as Committee members - in their personal capacity as scientists,
responsible only to the Council. The membership of the
Committee is such that it covers a wide range of expertise related
to studies of marine pollution. The members do not act as
national representatives. The 1988 membership of the Committee is
found on page 1.

This report is the first to be published by ICES on the results of its
programme to explore the use of fish and shellfish to determine temporal
trends in contaminant levels in the marine environment . Since 1986
the work on the analysis of temporal trends in contaminants in marine
organisms has been coordinated by the Working Group on the Statistical
Aspects of Trend Monitoring, and individual members of this group have
been responsible for the development of the statistical models used in
this report and their subsequent application to the trend monitoring
data . I wish to express particular appreciation to Dr M.D. Nicholson
(MAFF Fisheries Laboratory, Lowestoft, UK) for his work in developing
the statistical procedures used here, and for conducting the analysis
of the ICES data sets, and to Dr S. Wilson, ICES Secretariat, for his
work in computer processing of the data, compilation of the statistical
analyses and preparation of the plots, and organizing this report
for publication.

High quality measurements, together with an understanding of the associated
uncertainties, are essential for any scientific activity. Measurements provide
both an initial inspiration for a theory or model and, separately, a test of
its validity. Oceanographic measurements are additionally precious, being both
difficult and expensive to obtain, so the extra efforts to minimize the
potential for errors and to extract the maximum information from the
measurements, commensurate with their quality, are judicious. To achieve these
aims discussion sessions on data processing procedures and techniques are
invaluable; with the bonus that the papers, if published in one volume, will
provide a useful reference source both for novices and those not directly
involved in the data processing.

The 1989 report of ACMP, as in earlier years, is addressed mainly
to the questions posed to ICES by the regulatory Commissions of
the Helsinki, Oslo and Paris Conventions. The Executive Summary
that follows this overview provides an outline of the content of
the report in respect to work requested by the regulatory Commissions,
under three sub-headings for the Oslo and Paris Commissions,
broadly corresponding with the groupings under which they
record their requests, and a single sub-heading relating to the
requests specifically raised by the Helsinki Commission. The
Executive Summary is followed by a more detailed report on the
progress made in relation to the specific or individual questions
raised by the three Commissions. This is intended to direct the
reader to the sections of the report likely to be of most
interest in relation to a particular question .

The ACMP report is addressed mainly to the questions posed to
ICES by the regulatory Commissions of the Helsinki, Oslo and
Paris Conventions. The Executive Summary that follows this overview
provides an outline of the content of the report in respect
to work requested by the regulatory Commissions, under three subheadings
for the Oslo and Paris Commissions broadly corresponding
with the groupings under which they record their requests, and a
single sub-heading relating to the requests specifically raised
by the Helsinki Commission.
The Executive Summary is followed by a more detailed report on
the progress made in relation to the specific questions raised by
the three Commissions. This is intended to direct the reader to
the sections of the report likely to be of most interest in relation
to a particular question.

The ACMP report is addressed mainly to the questions posed to ICES by the regulatory Commissions of the
Helsinki, Oslo and Paris Conventions. The Executive Summary that follows this overview provides a
summary of the report, under three sub-headings, for the Oslo and Paris Commissions broadly corresponding
with the groupings under which they record their requests, and a single sub-heading relating to the requests
specifically raised by the Helsinki Commission. There is an additional sub-heading for all Commissions
relating to items of interest which do not form part of any request.
The Executive Summary js followed by a more detailed report on the progress made in relation to the
specific questions raised by the three Commissions. This is intended to direct the reader to the sections of
the report likely to be of most interest in relation to a particular question.
It will be noted that in a number of cases the advice or information goes beyond that specifically requested
by the Commissions. This additional material is provided, in part, simply for the sake of completing the
picture so far as it is practicable at this point in time. As such, it will be of benefit to the wider audience
within ICES that ACMP is also expected to advise. It is, however, hoped that the regulatory Commissions
will find this material of interest since it is directly related to the questions they have raised.

The sediments offer a tremendous potential for the follow-up of the relative changes in the
concentrations of the inorganic and persistent organic contaminants in the marine environment.
Concentrations of harmful substances in water are known to be variable, depending on water
exchange, season and hydrographical factors, while concentrations in biomaterial depend,
among other things, on species, tissue type, age of the specimen, and the migration habits of the
species. In peaceful net sedimentation areas, the sediments represent the local hydrodynamic
regime, integrating the changes in the concentrations of persistent substances over a period of
time, the length of which depends on the sedimentation rate. While the rate of sedimentation
depends on the season, it has a great tendency to remain constant over the years.

This report gives an account of the results of the first step of the ICES/IOC/OSPARCOM Intercomparison
Exercise on the Analysis of Chlorobiphenyl Congeners in Marine Media. Results were received from 62
laboratories. An encouraging agreement has been achieved, with standard deviations for reproducibility of
1.11-1.12 for all CBs except CB 52 for a group of 47 laboratories. The optimization procedure of the gas
chromatograph (GC) was experienced by many participants as a valuable learning process. This optimization
of the GC conditions has led to a better level of agreement in comparison with former intercalibration
exercises on CB analysis .
Difficulties were experienced with the identification of the linear range of the electron capture detector and
bringing the unknown solution within this linear range. Results based on peak heights showed a better
reproducibility than results based on peak areas. The separation of CBs 28 and 31 was the most difficult one.
Only 28 laboratories were able to achieve a separation of these two CBs.
It is concluded that the second step of this exercise may be organized now. This step will involve, in
principle, an analysis of a cleaned-up blubber and a sediment extract.

Clearly then, the strategy of the Study Group needed to be aimed at clarifying conceptual ideas and developing
theory rather than providing an up-to-date review of the field. Such objectives are often finaJly achieved
by individuals rather than by group discussions so the tactics of the meeting were to encourage, provoke,
or annoy individuals or small groups into attacking these needs. This was done firstly by group discussions
of the background and problems of recruitment mode11ing research. These are reported in Section 2.
Secondly, by splitting into smaller "think tanks" to address the problems in more detail. The reports of these
groups were all very useful, particularly in the elucidation of concepts, and are reported in Section 3.
Finally, individuals were encouraged to submit protypes of models, etc., that they hope to develop further,
or thoughts on concepts. These are reported in Section 4. This section is the responsibility of individuals
rather than a consensus view of the problem, but should provide ideas for the future and perhaps some
contributions to the proposed ICES Mini-Symposium for 1991 on "Models of Recruitment Processes
Relevant to the Formulation of Research Strategies".

Under the auspices of the International Council for the
Exploration of the Sea (ICES), two Atlantic Salmon
Scale Reading Workshops were held in the Marine
Laboratory, Aberdeen. The first Workshop, in 1984,
produced a comprehensive guide to the collection and
interpretation of Atlantic salmon scales and the second
Workshop, in 1988, amended a number of these guidelines
in light of the experience which had been gained in
their use. The second Workshop also established guidelines
for computerized scale reading and developed new
parameters for stock identification. Because some of the
problems which had arisen in the interval between the
two Workshops could not be immediately resolved, a
number of research recommendations were added to the
list which appeared in the first Workshop report.
This report presents these guidelines, the new parameters
for stock identification, and the research recommendations.

The ACMP report addresses the questions posed to ICES by the regulatory Commissions of the Helsinki, Oslo and
Paris Conventions as well as other issues considered relevant by the ACMP. The Executive Summary that follows
this overview provides a summary of the report, under three sub-headings, for the Oslo and Paris Commissions
broadly corresponding with the groupings under which they record their requests, and a single sub-heading relating
to the requests specifically raised by the Helsinki Commission. There is an additional sub-heading for all
Commissions relating to items of interest which do not form part of any request.
The Executive Summary is followed by a more detailed report on the progress made in relation to the specific
questions raised by the three Commissions. This is intended to direct the reader to the sections of the report likely
to be of most interest in relation to a particular question.
It will be noted that in a number of cases the advice or information goes beyond that specifically requested by the
Commissioos. This additional material is provided, in part, simply for the sake of completing the picture so far
as it is practicable at this point in time. As such, it will be of benefit to the wider audience within ICES that ACMP
is also expected to advise. It is, however, hoped that the regulatory Commissions will find this material of interest,
since it is directly related to the question they have raised.

A Workshop on Scale Reading of Baltic Salmon (Salmo
salar Linnaeus, 1758) (Chairman: Mr E. Ikonen, Finland),
with members drawn from all countries participating
in the Baltic Salmon and Trout Assessment Working
Group (BSTAWG), was held in Utsjoki, Finland 15-17
January 1991.

Item a) of the terms of reference refers to the question
of how various closures can affect stock assessments
through catchability changes or otherwise. Such closures
include closures of areas or limitations of the time
periods when fishing is permitted.
It is quite obvious that if only aggregate measures of
effort or CPUE are available, then resulting catchability
estimates can be quite badly biased. For example if
CPUE values have been calculated in aggregate form
before the closure of an area with high catch per unit of
effort, then the closure of this area may lead to a severe
underestimate in the CPUE estimates after the closure
takes effect. Similar concerns apply to temporal closures.

The field phase of the Baltic Sea Patchiness Experiment
(PEX '86) was carried out in the Central Baltic Proper
in April/May 1986 after a year of intensive planning.
An overview of the results was published in 1989 by the
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea in
the Cooperative Research Report series as No. 163 in
two volumes containing respectively text and figures
(otherwise designated as PEX '86 Publication, Part I) .
The bulk of the data from the investigations was released
in 1992 in a computerized PEX '86 Atlas published in
Tallinn (PEX '86 Publication, Part II).

There is a growing perception among scientists and the
general public that human use of the marine environment
may have led to marked and widespread changes in the
North Sea ecosystem. Of these activities, fishing has
received considerable attention as an agent for change.
In recent years an increasing amount of information has
been collected, indicating that some fisheries are likely
to impose a considerable mortality on a variety of nontarget
species, including fish, benthos and marine mammals.
It is thus probable that fishing has led to the local
extinction of individual species, to habitat alteration, and
to some changes in the structure and functioning of the
ecosystem.

This report gives an account of the second step of the ICES/IOC/OSPARCOM Intercomparison Programme on the
Analysis of Chlorobiphenyls (CBs) in Marine Media. Results were received from 58 laboratories in sixteen countries.
In this exercise, CB Nos. 28, 31, 52, 101, 105, 118, 138, 153, 156 and 180 were analysed in an unknown CB
solution, a cleaned seal blubber extract, and a cleaned sediment extract. An extra test, which included the analysis of
an unknown CB solution vs. a supplied known solution, was carried out by laboratories that produced outlying results
in the first exercise and laboratories who participated for the first time in this second exercise.

Evaluation of identified interactions between seabirds and fish, and between seabirds and shellfish; estimates of seabird consumption of prey, by prey species; and analysis of prey consumption by examining the size- or year classes of prey taken.

This report adheres to the general layout of the Database report of the Stomach Sampling project 1981 (Daan (ed.)1989-ICES CRR164) With the object of making it relatively easy to compare the results of these two major stomach sampling projects.

This report contents responses from ACME, ICES to the requests made at the Oslo, Paris and Helsinki Commissions, and other topics of potential interest for which ACME had not been asked directly but relevant as per ACME discrection.

This report gives an account of Step 3a of the ICES/IOC/OSPARCOM Intercomparison Programme on the Determination of Chlorobiphenyl Congeners (CBs) in Marine Media. In this exercise, participants were requested to analyse six times a cod liver oil certified reference material for CBs 52, 153 and 156 in order to establish the long-term precision of such analyses in the laboratories. The concentrations of CBs 52 and 153 were certified and known to the participants.

Acoustic and egg surveys in the southwestern waters of Europe.

The Advisory Committee on Marine Pollution met in Charlottenlund,
11-13 June 1975, with Mr A J Lee in the chair. All members were
present. The General Secretary acted as Rapporteur.
The Committee's terms of reference, responsibilities and working
procedures as established by the Council are given in Annex 1,

For a number of reasons it is very desirable to determine year class
strength at an early stage in the life history of commercial fish species.
In recent years, therefore, there has been an increase of international -·
interest in young fish surveys; largely because of the need for earlier
and more accurate forecasts of year class strength in relation to management
of fish stocks.

In this paper the method described by Jones (1974) for assessing the effects
of changes in fishing effort and mesh size using length composition data
has been applied to Nephrops in the Firth of Forth. For this analysis, values
of Loo and M/K are required for each sex. Preliminary analyses of the data
were carried out using various combinations of Loo and M/K.

The Advisory Committee on Marine Pollution has been established by the
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea with the task to
formulate on behalf of the Council, scientific advice on marine pollution
and its effects on living resources, to member governments and to regulatory
commissions. It is a firm procedure within the Council that reports of
other subsidiary bodies must pass the Advisory Committee on Marine Pollution.

The smelt tagging tests described in this paper were carried out in
fulfilment of the Council's recommendation at their meeting in Copenhagen
in 1958, that "All member countries should carry out experiments to determine
the comparative value of various types of tags and methods of
tagging and that, in particular, as part of this programme, teams from
different countries should participate in joint tagging programmes as a
test of different techniques".

After discussion of this resolution with various members of the Working
Group it was decided that a meeting was unnecessary for this purpose but
that it could be most efficiently met by correspondence between the
authors and the preparation of a joint paper utilising all the relevant
data available in their laboratories and in the literature.

Resolution C.Res.1973/2:9 which was passed at the 61st Statutory
Meeting of ICES set up a Working Group to consider the various effects
of sand and gravel extraction on fisheries. The first meeting of this
Group recommended that member countries should: (i) be encouraged to
seek the view of the Council on the fisheries aspects of proposals to
extract sand and/or gravel in their sectors of the continental shelf
whenever such proposals are considered likely to affect international
fisheries; and (ii) to submit to the Council on an annual basis details
of marine sand and gravel extraction within their respective sectors.

The Working Group first met · in Hamburg in April 1972 and presented its
first report to the 60th Statutory Meeting of the Council. A revised
version was submitted to the 61st Statutory Meeting and published in
April 1974 (Coop.Res.Rep., No.38, pp. 1-22). Althoug~ much of what
it contained was of wider application in the field of comparative
fishing, the report had been written with bottom trawling sp·ecifically
in mind.

At the 63rd Statutory Meeting of the Council the following resolution was
passed (C. Res. 1975/2:19): "The Working Group on North Sea Herring Larval
Surveys should meet 3-6 May 1976 in Lysekil to plan for more complete
integration of larval surveys currently being conducted in that area; and to
reassess the methodology and sampling intensity required for surveys of
herring larvae with particular emphasis on immediate pre-metamorphosis
larvae. To achieve these objectives, it was strongly hopedthat.representatives
of the German Democratic Republic, Poland and USSR would be in a position to
attend this meeting".

This report first discusses selected recent literature on the effects of pollutants on marine organisms under six headings - biochemical, morphological, physiological, behavioural, population/community and genetic

The report of this study represents the most
complete account so far available of the input to a maritime region involving
the participation of several countries. The survey conducted has many
deficiencies. A number of rough estimates have had to be made, often based on
rather sweeping assumptions. Nevertheless, broad conclusions can be drawn
and areas of weakness can be identified which need attention before more
reliable estimates can be made.

The Fished Volume (formerly swept volume) method
for measuring fishing effort is used in a member-country of
ICES and has many interesting features which make it worthy
of consideration by other countries and agencies as a tool
for fisheries research, fishery resource management, and
prosecution of the commercial fisheries.

The ICES Statutory Meeting in 1976 decided that "The Working Group
on North Sea Young Herring Surveys should meet for 3 days in May
1977 in IJmuiden to discuss the planning of these surveys and discuss
further the standardization of gear and methods. The meeting of the
Working Group should coincide in time and place with a similar
meeting of the Gadoid-I Working Group, so that aspec t s of mutual
interest can be resolved". (C. Re s.1976/2:10.) Consequently , both
Working Groups met in IJmuiden on 24-26 May 1977. Thi s report
presents both the results of j oint sessions of the two Working
Groups and the results of separate sessions of the herring group.
Results from separate me etings of the gadoid group are presented
in ICES 1977a.

The Herring Assessment Working Group for the Area South of 62°N met
at Charlottenlund in the period 9-18 March 1977 to report to the
Liaison Committee meeting in April-May 1977 on the following subjects:
(a) reassessment of the state of, and appropriate levels of
TAC for North Sea and Skagerrak herring in 1977 and
1970.
(b) the appropriate TAC for Celtic Sea herring in the period
1 April - 31 March in 1977 and 1978.
(c) the TAC level for Division Vla herring in 1977 and 1978.
(d) the appropriate TAC in the Northern Irish Sea (Division
VIIa) for herring in 1977 and 1978.
(e) reassessment of the state of the North Sea sprat
population and the appropriate TAC for 1978.
(f) reassessment of the sprat stocks in Division Illa and
the Norwegian West Coast fjords with appropriate advice
on management action.
(g) the distribution of the stocks of, and fisheries on,
certain pelagic species in relation to extended economic
fishery zones.

The results of the 11th International Survey of Herring Larvae in the
North Sea and Adjacent Waters, which was carried out during 1977/78, are
presented.
They indicate a marked increase in larval production in both the northwestern
and central North Sea compared with the previous two years. Some increase
was also apparent in the Buchan area and in the southern North Sea/eastern
Channel, although overall in these latter areas production was still at a
relatively very low level.
The spawning stock size of herring in the northwestern and central North
Sea,as estimated from sub-area regressions of larval abundance on spawning
stock size is 136 733 tons. It is likely that in addition a further
25 000 tons of herring spawned in the southern North Sea/eastern Channel.
The catches of herring larvae taken by different countries were compared.
It was found that there was no evidence of a significant difference in
the catches of the critical< 10 mm size category.

This report contains additional results from the baseline study of the
level of contaminating substances in living resources of the North
Atlantic which were received after the preparation of the report
published as Cooperative Research Report, No.69 (1977). Additionally,
results of studies carried out by the United States prior to the baseline
study are presented in a separate section to allow some possibility to
compare results on similar species throughout the entire North Atlantic.

One of the main objectives of the ICES Working Group on Marine Pollution
Baseline and Monitoring Studies in the North Atlantic is to obtain measurements
of the present levels of contaminants (the 1baseline 1 ) in the marine
environment. At the second meeting of the former ICES Sub-Group on
Contaminant Levels in Sea Water (April 1977), it was agreed that proposals
for a baseline study of trace metals in the open ocean were premature and
impractical in view of the •state of the art• on this subject. In anticipation,
however, of this future programme, the Group agreed that the
preparation of a status report on selected trace metal measurements in sea
water WO\lld be very useful. This paper presents the findings of this
review. 1 )