Enrique González-Ortegón

Spanish National Research Council | CSIC · Department of Ecology and Coastal Management

The analysis of body relationships and condition factors are useful tools in studies of marine populations, and they have been widely used in fishery research and management. In this study, width–weight (WWR) and length–weight (LWR) relationships and Fulton’s condition factors were analyzed for six commercially important decapod crustacean species...

Behavioral changes associated with exposure to pollutants represent the earliest response for organisms confronted by perceivable chemical signals. This study was carried out with the objective of evaluating behavioral responses associated with different scenarios of exposure to pollutants (non-forced vs forced) in two shrimp species (Penaeus vanna...

Fragments of microplastics (<5 mm) found in commercial species of fish, crustaceans, and bivalves, are an issue of global concern. The bioaccumulation of microplastics and other anthropogenic particles in different levels of the food web may provoke unwanted impacts on marine ecosystems and cause pernicious effects on human health. Here, we study t...

Scavengers play a key role in nutrient cycling and in the energy transfer between the terrestrial-aquatic interface (Beasley et al. 2012). Obligatory scavengers feed exclusively on carrion, while some predator species act opportunistically as facultative scavengers when carrion is available (Morton 2006; Moleón and Sánchez-Zapata 2015). Species of...

During a diving survey on soft-bottom habitats in the Gulf of Cadiz (Southwestern Spain), the use of the sea cucumber Holothuria arguinensis (Echinodermata, Holothuriidae) as a shelter by juvenile Senegal’s sea bream Diplodus bellottii (Chordata: Sparidae) was observed. Eight juvenile sea bream D. bellottii were videoed sheltering under the sea cuc...

In this study, 110 male and female blue crabs Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, 1896 were collected from the coastal waters of Morocco, Africa using baited traps between February and December 2021. Here, we report the first occurrence of the species in the ports of Tangier and Tangier Med (the Strait of Gibraltar). These additional records support recen...

The invasive Atlantic blue crab Callinectes sapidus has considerably extended its distribution along the Gulf of Cadiz and Moroccan coasts in the northeast Atlantic. This could indicate a new introduction event in the Gulf of Cadiz from the native area, in case of detectable genetic differences from the Mediterranean Sea populations. To test this a...

Callinectes sapidus, the invasive blue crab from the west of the Atlantic Ocean, has extended its distribution along the Atlantic coast around the Gulf of Cadiz and increased massively since 2016. Food web studies are useful for understanding changes in ecosystems caused by exotic species. Stable isotope analysis (δ 13 C and δ 15 N) were used to as...

Fragments of plastic called microplastics (MPs; < 5mm) are an issue of global concern and they have been identified in commercial species of fish, crustaceans, and bivalves. The bioaccumulation of MPs in different levels of the food webs may provoke unwanted impacts in marine ecosystems and cause pernicious effects regarding human health. In the pr...

The ubiquity of small plastic fragments and fibres, called microplastics (MPs; < 5mm), in the marine environment has allowed their incorporation to marine organisms. Such incorporation can have an impact in the health of marine ecosystem and in human health, as MPs can be found in seafood commercial species (JPI Oceans, 2020). Overall, the main rou...

Weakfish (Cynoscion regalis) has been present in Iberian waters since at least 2011, when it was first recorded in the Guadalquivir estuary. Little is known about the preferences and feeding strategies of weakfish outside of its native range; therefore, in this work, we carried out a comprehensive study between March 2021 and September 2021 to eluc...

Climate change may enhance the establishment of introduced species, as well as the poleward shift in distribution of numerous species over decades. Long-term research and monitoring of an ecosystem at the southernmost point of the Atlantic coast of Europe should be an important priority in order to detect and understand trends in species compositio...

Species' responses to climate change may vary considerably among populations. Various response patterns define the portfolio available for a species to cope with and mitigate effects of climate change. Here, we quantified variation in larval survival and physiological rates of Carcinus maenas among populations occurring in distant or contrasting ha...

Integrative taxonomy studies have allowed us to clarify some taxonomic problems in cryptic species within species of InachusWeber, 1795 with two protogastric tubercles found in European waters. Several morphotypes of Inachus phalangium (Fabricius, 1775) are recognized, and a new species is described from the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula,...

Some of the elements in the rocky intertidal zone, such as boulders, act as a refuge, mating, feeding and nursery areas for marine fauna. In the present study, we analysed the population structure of the intertidal stone crab Xantho poressa in a human-restricted area, between March 2019 and February 2020, comprised of a rocky shore along the SW Atl...

Small microplastics (SMPs) in the gulf of Cadiz was sampled at 5 m depth by pumping it through the ship's pipe system and filtered through a 45 μm mesh size net. Our study reveals that higher densities have been found (130 mg⋅m − 3) compared to other regions worldwide and these densities decreased from the coastline to the outer stations, showing a...

Fragments of microplastics (< 5mm) found in commercial species of fish, crustaceans, and bivalves, are an issue of global concern. The bioaccumulation of microplastics in different levels of the food web may provoke unwanted impacts on marine ecosystems and cause pernicious effects on human health. Here, we study the presence of anthropogenic parti...

The use of non-forced multi-compartmented exposure systems has gained importance in the assessment of the contamination-driven spatial avoidance response. This new paradigm of exposure makes it possible to assess how contaminants fragment habitats, interfering in the spatial distribution and species’ habitat selection processes. In this approach, o...

Since its first record in Europe as an exotic species back in 2009 at the Schelde estuary (Belgium), the weakfish Cynoscion regalis -native from North America East coast- has increased its presence in the Iberian Peninsula waters. Identified for the first time in the Guadalquivir River estuary (2011) and later in the Sado estuary (2014), C. regalis...

Temperature is a well-known environmental factor that affects the survival rate and development times of larvae in many brachyuran species. Intertidal species, such as the stone crab Xantho poressa are subject to aquatic and aerial temperature conditions, which make them suitable model species to analyse the effects of climate change. In this study...

New observations of non-indigenous species (NIS) in coastal waters, such as the Gulf of Cadiz (Spain) have increased since 1980 and more or less exponentially in the last five years. Ballast water has become the most significant pathway for unintentional introductions of NIS into marine ecosystems. For example, the marine larvae of crustacean decap...

In a restored wetland (South of Spain), where different flow regimes control water exchange with the adjacent Guadalquivir estuary, the native Palaemon varians coexists with an exotic counterpart species Palaemon macrodactylus. This controlled m\acrocosm offers an excellent opportunity to investigate how the effects of water management, through dif...

Modelling the environmental factors influencing the spatial variation of fish early life stages density and their drift history can identify the key biological and physical processes for the recruitment variability. Distance-based linear multivariate techniques were used to characterize the spawning areas of the European anchovy Engraulis encrasico...

Achieving a precise nutritional characterization of suspended particulate organic matter (SPOM) is key for understanding the efficiency of bottom-up trophic fluxes in estuaries. Assessing the nutritional status of SPOM in turbid estuaries is challenging due to the complex mixing and degradation dynamics of the autotrophic, heterotrophic and detrita...

The study of the recent colonisation of a symbiont and its interaction with host communities in new locations is an opportunity to understand how they interact. The use of isotopic ratios in trophic ecology can provide measurements of a species’ isotopic niche, as well as knowledge about how the isotopic niches between symbiont and host species ove...

The real distribution range of a species is mostly unknown due to the lack of sampling in certain regions in the world. This may be especially problematic for freshwater species in the Mediterranean basin since its freshwater inhabitants are taxa highly sensitive to anthropogenic disturbances. The cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene in Atyaephy...

The ability of aquatic organisms to sense the surrounding environment chemically and interpret such signals correctly is crucial for their ecological niche and survival. Although it is an oversimplification of the ecological interactions, we could consider that a significant part of the decisions taken by organisms are, to some extent, chemically d...

Observations of previously unrecorded non-native species in the Gulf of Cadiz (Spain), situated between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, have accelerated since 1980, and increased rapidly in the past 5 years. Four new records of decapod crustaceans have been detected in this region: the African snapping shrimp Alpheus sp., the West Afr...

The first case of abnormal leucism in the European Sardine or Pilchard Sardina pilchardus (Walbaum, 1792) is reported. A few sardines with abnormal pigmentation were captured by fishermen in the northern part of the Gulf of Cadiz (SW Atlantic coast), between Portugal and Spain, and one specimen was presented to the authors for examination. Species...

Diazinon is one of the insecticides that represent a high risk for Costa Rican estuarine environments due to its widespread use in pineapple plantations. In estuaries, organisms are frequently submitted to stress caused by natural factors (e.g., continuous changes in salinity levels) and, additionally, to stress due to contamination. Therefore, the...

The genus Palaemon comprises worldwide marine and freshwater shrimps and prawns, and some of them are ecologically or commercially important species. Palaemon is not currently a monophyletic group, so phylogenetics and systematics are constantly changing. Species crypticism has been pointed out in several Palaemon species, being the clearest eviden...

The ecological role of consumers in a food web requires identifying their energy sources to estimate their trophic positions (TPs). This is relevant in ecosystems inhabited by endemic species such as the decapod crustacean Dugastella valentina. This species inhabits the freshwater streams around the Gulf of Valencia (eastern Spain) which has been c...

When shrimps select a habitat, the presence of elements like predators, shelters and contamination might determine if an area is preferred or avoided. We hypothesised that when shrimps are exposed to a situation in which they have to select whether to avoid contamination, seek shelters or protect themselves against predators, they will avoid the si...

Revista de divulgación científica Hidden Nature 10 sobre Especies Exóticas Invasoras

The present study reports the occurrence of several specimens of the African caridean shrimp Lysmata uncicornis Holthuis & Maurin, 1952 in the NE Atlantic coast (Gulf of Cadiz, Spain and the Algarve, Portugal). Lysmata uncicornis is a poorly studied species that has been originally described from the Atlantic waters of Morocco, where it was first c...

The GoC shelf waters present much higher concentrations of dissolved Cu, Cd, and Zn than other coastal areas, constituting an important source of these elements onto its neighbouring basins, i.e., the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. In this study we assessed the role of the GoC surface currents in the trace metals transport. For this purp...

The African parasitic pea crab Afropinnotheres monodi lives in association with a high number of different bivalve species, although in its reproductive phase (soft females) a high prevalence has been observed infesting mainly intertidal Mytilus galloprovincialis. In recent years this pea crab has been recorded in the south of Iberian Peninsula, wi...

Naturalised populations in estuaries are characteristic of non-native species tolerant to the salinity gradient. The non-native isopod Synidotea laticauda, since the first record in 1991 in a European estuary, has been continuously recorded in others (e.g. in 1994 in the Guadalquivir estuary). Possible links between physiology and its successful es...

As many other Pinnotherid crabs, the African pea crab Afropinnotheres monodi live in association with the mantle cavity of different bivalve species. This pea crab causes a significant reduction of the condition index of the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis. The greatest effects brought about for the infestation with soft females (larger size and o...

Phytoplankton community composition expresses estuarine functionality and its assessment can be improved by implementing novel quantitative fatty acid based procedures. Fatty acids have similar potential to pigments for quantifying phytoplankton functional groups but have been far less applied. A recently created dataset containing vast information...

The Atlantic tarpon Megalops atlanticus Valenciennes, 1847 is a very large, highly migratory fish that frequents coastal and inshore waters. Its distribution ranges the western Atlantic, from Nova Scotia to Argentina, the eastern Pacific, near the opening of the Panama Canal, and the eastern Atlantic, mainly along the west coast of Africa, from Mau...

Essential fish habitats (EFHs) are all aquatic habitats and substrates fundamental for spawning, breeding, feeding and/or growing to maturity. Estuaries are a good example of this because they play an important role as nursery grounds for several marine species. Despite their importance for completing the life cycle of some fish stocks, little is k...

Phytoplankton community composition expresses estuarine functionality and its assessment can be improved by implementing novel quantitative fatty acid based procedures. Fatty acids have similar potential to pigments for quantifying phytoplankton functional groups but have been far less applied. A recently created dataset containing vast information...

• The common littoral shrimp Palaemon serratus is an ecologically and economically important decapod crustacean. Understanding the spatial structure of its populations is crucial to implement effective management strategies. • In this study, 17 polymorphic microsatellite nuclear markers were examined in 252 individuals to explore the genetic divers...

The marine parasitic African pea crab Afropinnotheres monodi Manning, 1993 has well-established populations in the gulf of Cadiz, where it is invasive. In this study, its tolerance to temperature and salinity variation during larval development were studied in the laboratory. Larvae were reared in seawater (salinity 36) at different temperatures (5...

Metals transported into the coastal zone by the South Iberian rivers are key to understand the biogeochemical cycles and distribution of trace elements in the Gulf of Cadiz (GoC hereinafter) and the exchange with the Mediterranean Sea. Previous studies carried out in the 80s have suggested that metal enrichment in the Alboran Sea (Western Mediterra...

Contamination is an important factor for determining the pattern of habitat selection by organisms. Since many organisms are able to move from contaminated to more favorable habitats, we aimed to: (i) verify if the contamination along the river Guadalete (Spain) could generate a chemical barrier, restricting the displacement of freshwater shrimps (...

Understanding the biogeochemical cycles and distribution of trace elements in the marine environment is one of the main challenges in chemical oceanography. We describe herein the trace metal composition of the uppermost surface ocean of various oceanographic regions (Arctic and Southern Oceans, subtropical Atlantic Ocean, and Mediterranean Sea). O...

Offspring size variation in relation to maternal size and season is characteristic of a range of species living in seasonal environments. Little is known about the proximate mechanisms explaining the links between maternally driven variation in offspring phenotypes, for instance when mothers have different diets depending on their size or the seaso...

Most fish species have complex life-cycles, in which they pass through different levels of the food web and occupy different habitats. Fishery management requires accurate knowledge of these life-cycles, particularly in the case of small pelagic fish. In the Gulf of Cadiz, European anchovy spawns mainly from April to September preferentially in the...

Numerous biogeochemical studies in the Southern Ocean have focused on the importance of trace metals in controlling primary production (e.g. Fe, Co) or as potentially toxic to the ecosystem (e.g. Ag, Cd). However, the reasons why Fe limitation is prevalent in the Southern Ocean or the concentrations of non-biogenic elements in surface waters are hi...

Recruitment of many marine organisms depends on transport and survival of eggs and larvae from spawning grounds to nursery areas. Estuaries and neighbouring coastal waters play an important role in the recruitment of some small pelagic fish (SPF) as nursery areas. Damming of estuaries results in major alterations of their natural hydrological regim...

The Gulf of Cadiz socio-ecosystem (SW Spain) is characterized by a focal ecosystem component – the estuary of the Guadalquivir River – that has an influence on the marine ecosystem – serves as a nursery area – and at the same time concentrates a great number of sectoral human activities. This nursery role particularly affects the anchovy fishery, w...

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a major component of the organic matter pool, playing a key role in the global ocean functioning. However, studies on DOM in waters of many ocean regions, such as the Gulf of Cadiz (GoC), are poorly known. Advanced aquatic sensors enable autonomous for long-term deployments in situ collection of high frequency DOM...

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a major component of the organic matter pool, playing a key role in the global ocean functioning. However, studies on DOM in waters of many ocean regions, such as the Gulf of Cadiz (GoC), are poorly known. Advanced aquatic sensors enable autonomous for long-term deployments in situ collection of high frequency DOM...

Trace metal bioaccumulation and biotransfer from lower (zooplankton and suprabenthos) to upper trophic levels (nekton) in an estuarine food web have been studied in the Guadalquivir estuary. Trace metal (Fe, Al, Sr, Zn, Cu, Mn, Ba, Ga, B, As, Ni, Pb, Cr, V, Zr, Co, Cd, Mo, Ag, Bi and Ti) concentrations were measured in tissues from fish Pomatoschis...

Background The maintenance of species and the promotion of speciation are closely related to chromosomal rearrangements throughout evolution. Decapoda represents the most species-rich order among crustaceans and, despite its ecological and economic importance, little is known about decapod karyology. We aim at cytogenetically characterizing two sym...

The Gulf of Cadiz socio-ecosystem is characterized by a focal ecosystem component-the estuary of the Guadalquivir River-that has an influence on the marine ecosystem-serves as a nursery area-and at the same time concentrates a great number of sectoral human activities. This nursery role particularly affects the anchovy fishery, which is the most ec...

The ecological role of species can vary among populations depending on local and regional differences in diet. This is particularly true for top predators such as the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), which exhibits a highly varied diet throughout its distribution range. Local dietary assessments are therefore critical to fully understand th...

We studied trace metal biotransfers from preys to higher trophic levels in the nursery area of the Guadalquivir estuary food web. In this study, trace metal concentrations (Fe,Al,Sr,Zn,Cu,Mn,Ba,Ga,B,As,Ni,Pb,Cr,V,Zr,Co,Cd,Mo,Ag,Bi and Tl) were measured in tissues from pelagic and benthonic species of the upper (oligohaline) and downer (polihaline)...

Planktonic larvae are the main mechanism used by crabs to disperse and settle at new territories. Since there were no previous studies on the community of Brachyuran larvae in the Guadalquivir estuary, it has been sampled monthly for a year (from February 2012 to January 2013) in two sampling stations, located at 8 and 20 km from the mouth. In each...

The Atlantic–Mediterranean transition zone between the Alborán Sea and the Gulf of Cádiz constitutes the most prominent marine geographic barrier in European waters and includes known phylogeographic breaks such as the Strait of Gibraltar and the Almería-Oran Front. A genetic shift in this area has been previously documented for the European littor...

The Gulf of Cadiz socio-ecosystem is characterized by a focal ecosystem component –the estuary of the Guadalquivir River– that has an influence on the marine ecosystem –serves as a nursery area– and at the same time concentrates a great number of sectoral human activities. This nursery role particularly affects the anchovy fishery, which is the mos...

Estuarine coastal areas play an important role in the recruitment of some small pelagic fish populations mainly when stable salinity-gradients are present. Damming of these ecosystems results in major alterations in this natural hydrological regime. Therefore, changes in the marine/freshwater balance can result in services loss, like the nursery ha...