Impact of winter oceanographic conditions on zooplankton abundance in northern Adriatic with implications on Adriatic anchovy stock prognosis

Anchovy, Engraulis encrasicolus (L.), is commercially one of the most important Adriatic small pelagic fish. Despite the prevailing oligotrophication trend in the northern Adriatic (NA), the anchovy catch increased after 2000, coinciding with an increased number of the winter type A occurrences, when Po River waters are favoured to spread across the NA. Namely, winter type A is characterised by conditions resulting with Po River waters spreading across the NA along with salinity decrease. On the contrary, in winters of type B, salinity is high. We hypothesized in previous paper, based on correlation between circulation patterns and phytoplankton with anchovy catch, that excess feeding of anchovy in this winter pre-spawning period (February) can lead to increased amounts of the anchovy eggs two months later and subsequently to the total fish catch of the same year. In this paper, we investigate in more details and based on longer time series the relation between anchovy catch and winter circulation patterns of the NA. Additionally, we studied the association between anchovy catch and zooplankton, as anchovy is predominantly zooplanktivorous. We found that zooplankton abundances in winters of A type enhance and that ciliates play an important role in the NA anchovy food web and enrichment of the region with anchovy. Finally, the results of our investigation might in time represent the basics for a sustainable anchovy management in the Adriatic Sea as they enable the development of prediction models of the anchovy stock.