Yolanda Vila

• Instituto Español de Oceanografia

The Gulf of Cádiz is influenced by the collision of the Alborán Domain with the North African and South Iberian margins, which ultimately promotes hydrocarbon-rich fluid venting. Regarding oceanography, the effects of the Eastern North Atlantic Central Water, the Mediterranean Outflow Water and their interaction, strongly influence seabed topograph...

The Gulf of Cádiz margin is characterized by geological processes that control seabed bathymetry and promote hydrocarbon-rich fluid venting in areas where the Eastern North Atlantic Central Water and the Mediterranean Outflow Water influence the substrate types. Geological and oceanographic processes determine the distribution of a wide variety of...

The seabed characteristics, the oceanographic circulation and the geomorphology heterogeneity of the Gulf of Cádiz (mud volcanoes, diapiric ridges, channels, etc.) promote a wide variety of biological communities.

Life history traits are available for many fish species in different regions, but less so for invertebrates such as cephalopods and crustaceans, though, they are increasingly needed for implementing an ecosystem-based approach. Recent food web modelling in the Gulf of Cadiz has identified invertebrates as keystone groups. However, information on li...

Advances in remotely-sensed techniques have revolutionized mapping methods and our understanding of the seabed environment. In particular, multibeam backscatter data nowadays allows developing quantitative studies on the composition of the seafloor, which represents an important baseline for habitat mapping. Usually, the acoustic response is consid...

Squilla mantis is an economically important species that is mainly caught by the Sanlucar de Barrameda bottom trawl fleet in the Gulf of Cadiz (eastern central Atlantic). Annual landings have ranged between 24 t in 1999 and 600 t in 2003, with a mean value of 269 t for the period 1984-2010. Catches have a marked seasonality, peaking in winter and s...

I_Marco_General_Sudatlantica_tcm7-203272.pdf

Spatial distribution and species diversity of Cephalopoda caught in ARSA bottom trawl surveys were studied out during two different seasons (autumn and spring) in the Gulf of Cadiz (Spain) from 2000 to 2007. Species composition of cephalopod assemblages was analysed, using both clustering analyses and non-metric multidimensional scaling analysis (n...

The common European squid Loligo vulgaris is mainly caught by a bottom trawl fishery in the Gulf of Cadiz (SW, Spain), accounting for 2.6% of the total bottom trawl landings in the area. Squid landings from the bottom trawl fleet represent 99% of the total landings in the Gulf of Cadiz, while only 1% is caught by the artisanal fleet. The squid fish...

The presence, distribution, and histological features of lipofuscin granules were investigated in brains of the dendrobranchiate decapods Marsupenaeus japonicus Bate, 1888, Melicertus kerathurus (Forskål, 1775), Parapenaeus longirostris (Lucas, 1846) (family Penaeidae), and Aristeus antennatus (Risso, 1816) (family Aristeidae). Autofluorescent lipo...

The so-called baca trawl fleet of the port of A Coruña working in the VIIIc ICES Division Area has been used since 1985 as the tuning fleet for the analytical assessment of the southern stock of hake Merluccius merluccius (L., 1758). The historical series of cpue dates from 1983 to 2000 with data missing from 1998. From January 1999, landings were...

The knowledge on the age structure in exploited crustacean populations is essential not only to undertand their population dynamics but also for an effective stock assessment and management. In the present work, a novel methodology based on the quantification of the age-pigment lipofuscin has been used for crustacean ageing became the difficulties...

A quantitative study of the lipofuscin content was carried out by image analysis in brains of known-age, pond-reared Penaeus japonicus (Crustacea, Decapoda) with the aim of assessing the applicability of the lipofuscin technique as an estimator of the physiological age in penaeids. With this purpose, three distinct measurements of lipofuscin levels...

The sperm ultrastructure of Meganyctiphanes norvegica was examined with the aim of investigating phylogenetic relationships between Euphausiacea and Decapoda. A noticeable feature of the spermatozoon of M. norvegica is the presence of a thick, two-layered capsule that is in close contact with the plasma membrane. The sperm ultrastructure in this sp...

Ovarian maturation was studied in pond-reared and wild-caught specimens of the shrimp Penaeus kerathurus in order to evaluate the influence of extensive culture conditions on the reproductive capacity of this species. Monthly samples of five female shrimp were taken from the wild and the pond from late winter (February–March) to mid-summer (July)....