Mesopotamian Journal of Marine Science

The blue swimming crab Portunus pelagicus (Linnaeus, 1766) was collected from Al-Fao region, southern Iraq. The carapace width for the adult males, was ranging between 80.15 and 120.34 mm, and for the adult females was ranging between 60.1 and 100.69 mm. The carapace length for the adult males ranged between 40.03 and 50.93 mm, while those of the adult females were 30.84-50.14 mm. The chelae length ranged between 50.21 and 90.06 mm and between 40.77 and 60.57 mm for males and females, respectively.

Three boreholes were taken from Al-Faw town, Basrah, South Iraq; at a depth of about 29 m, from an area in the flood plain of Shatt Al-Arab River. The cores were constituted essentially of silty clay and clayey silt which predominates the recent sediments. They are characterized by gray dark thin layer of silty clay between 16-17 m. The results indicated the disappearance of fossils in this thin layer due to the absence of water circulation. Twenty-six species of Ostracoda were identified, twelve taxa were recorded for the first time in the study area, these are Macrocyprina decora, Candona magnacauda, Cytherelloidea pracipua, Aurila cf. sp., Loxoconcha certinata, Loxocorniculum cf. sp., L. lilljeborg, Stigymatocythere indica, Neocytheromorpha reticulata, Cypridopsis sp., Cyprideis sp., Hemicytheridea sp., Krith sp. as well as three eco-facies: Fresh water, brackish water and shallow marine Ostracoda.

Fishing was conducted from March, 2001 to August, 2006 in the water surrounding Samalliah Island, Abu Dhabi, UAE and intertidal laggons of this island using different fishing gears. Traps and hooks and lines were used five days a week, cast nets were used once a week, while seine nets and fixed gillnets were used seasonally. A total of 65 fish species belonging to 35 families and to 51 genera were recorded during sampling period. Fish species are classified according to their appearance in the samples to four groups. Very common species comprising 26.1% (17 species), common species comprising 24.6% (16 species), rare species comprising 35.4% (23 species) and very rare species comprising 13.8% (9 species) of total fished species. Sixteen species were captured by hooks and lines, eleven species by garkoors and fourteen species by cast net.

Yearly values of ecological indices were calculated for several key biological groups include macrophytes, macroinvertbrates, fishes and waterfowls during the period 2005-2007 in Huwaiza, West Hammar and East Hammar marshes in Southern Iraq. Ecological indices increase for the studied key biological groups in 2006 in the three monitored marshes in comparison with that of 2005. Ecological indices of macrophytes and waterfowls assemblages increase steadly from 2005 towards 2007. On the contrary macroinvertebrates and fishes suffer severe decline in 2007 mainly due to reduced water level. Continuous improvement in ecological indices of macrophytes and waterfowls in two of the restored marshes indicated that reduced water level was less harsh to them than to the other two groups. In spite of the slow recovery in ecological indices in the monitored marshes, diversity and richness values fluctuated between poor to moderate status and semi-integrated to disturbed, respectively. Cases of poor status and disturbed were more common and limited good ones were noticed. Most evenness values indicated absence of dominance cases, except two below the acceptable limit (0.5) were scored both were during 2007. What is clear is that the yearly hydrological period plays a major role in manipulating the biodiversity and repercussion ecological indices in the Southern restored marshes. Lower values of ecological indices indicated that the environment of Southern marshes still disturbed and need more time and care to be fully restored.

Samples of zooplankton were collected monthly from three stations in the Shatt Al-Arab region (Al-Hartha, Garmat Ali and Al-Ashaar) for the period from June 1996 to May 1997 using a plankton net with a mesh-size of 120 µm. Twenty species of Cladocera belonging to 14 genera were recorded in the study area. The total number of Cladocera ranged between 0.3 ind./m3 during October 1996 and 7207 ind./m3 during April 1997. The highest values of Shannon Weaver diversity index and Richness index were recorded at station 3 during December and June (1.8 and 7.62, respectively), and the lowest values were (0) and 0.23, reported in July at station 3 and in March at station 2. The highest value of Evenness (1.0) was recorded at station 3, during October and the lowest (0.01) was recorded at station 2 during April. The Jaccard index indicates that the highest similarity was between stations 1 and 3 (34.48) and the lowest was between stations 2 and 3 (30.49).

Between September 2010 and May 2011, a total of 228 specimens belonging to 11 different species of marine fishes were collected from Al-Mehwat fish market at Hodeidah city, Yemen, to be investigated for nematode infections. Five species of nematodes, belonging to three families, were detected. These were the adult form of Cucullanus bourdini Petter and Le Bel, 1992 and the third larval stages of Anisakis simplex (Rudolphi, 1809), Terranova sp., Hysterothylacium sp. and Echinocephalus overstreeti Deardorff & Ko, 1983. C. bourdini was recorded from three fish species, A. simplex from all the eleven examined fish species, Hysterothylacium sp. from eight fish species, while both Terranova sp. and E. overstreeti were recorded from one fish species only. Adult nematodes were detected from fish intestine, while the larval parasites were detected from fish body cavity, mesenteries, stomach, intestine, liver, spleen, gonads and kidneys. For each parasite species, the prevalence, mean intensity and abundance were calculated for each infected host species. C. bourdini, Terranova sp. and Hysterothylacium sp. are recorded here for the first time from the Red Sea fishes of Yemen, while A. simplex and E. overstreeti were previously reported from some Red Sea fishes of Yemen. Among these five parasites, both A. simplex and Hysterothylacium sp. are known to have zoonotic importance.