Analysis of bottom trawl discard species in the Strait of Sicily

The demersal discard fauna of bottom trawl in the Strait of Sicily is varied and consisting of more than 221 species occupying different sub-strata at a depth ranging from 0 to 800 m (IRMA-CNR,1996). Although in the last decade the discard demersal community in this area was studied (Andaloro, 1985; Bono et al., 1992; Andreoli et al., 1995) the knowledge of the site assemblages is limited. During the Spring 2001, a statistical survey based on the method of "stratified sampling in space" was carried out. The most common diversity indices were used: Richness (S), Shannon-Wiener (H), Simpson (d) and Pielou (univariate methods).