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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Fisheries, Aquaculture and Living Resources
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1429150

Fourier-Transform Near Infrared Spectroscopy first application to age determination in European fish species: the case of the Atlantic horse mackerel from the central Mediterranean

Provisionally accepted
Gualtiero Basilone Gualtiero Basilone 1*Gabriella Lo Cicero Gabriella Lo Cicero 1*Miryam Fortuna Miryam Fortuna 1Anita Luviner Anita Luviner 2Rosalia Ferreri Rosalia Ferreri 1Salvatore Aronica Salvatore Aronica 1Simona Genovese Simona Genovese 1Giovanni Giacalone Giovanni Giacalone 1Ignazio Fontana Ignazio Fontana 1Angelo Bonanno Angelo Bonanno 1
  • 1 Institute for the Study of Anthropogenic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment, Department of Earth System Sciences and Technologies for the Environment, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy
  • 2 Bruker (Italy), Milano, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Fourier-Transform Near Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-NIRS) has recently been used to reduce the processing time for estimates of annual age in several fish species. The present study represents the first application of this technique to marine organisms from the European waters. Atlantic horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus) from the central Mediterranean Sea was selected for its ecological role, its socioeconomic value and because its age is regularly estimated by otolith reading under stereomicroscope for stock assessment purposes. Absorption spectra of the whole otoliths were acquired by FT-NIRS across a multiyear dataset, obtained during acoustic surveys carried out in different regions of the central Mediterranean Sea. The acquired spectra were processed to optimize calibration models to predict age. The best linear models obtained by the optimizing procedure, predicted age successfully with a coefficient of determination of 0.95-0.96, mean squared error 0.5 years, and bias <0.03 years. Although, regional calibration models were also obtained separately, the models with all regions combined appeared much more robust and encompassing the whole age range, suggesting its usefulness for the entire spatial distribution range considered in the preset study. The use of FT-NIRS allowed to successfully predict age for horse mackerel between the ages 1 and 14, with similar or better precision (and bias) of the traditional methods, also increasing the standardization by repeatability of age assignments. The preliminary results obtained by this study encourage further effort to fine-tune the calibration model for new species, in order to apply a precise, rapid, cost-effective method for stock assessment purposes of Mediterranean fish resources.

    Keywords: Near-infrared-spectroscopy, Trachurus trachurus, age determination, otolith, Mediterranean Sea

    Received: 07 May 2024; Accepted: 23 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Basilone, Lo Cicero, Fortuna, Luviner, Ferreri, Aronica, Genovese, Giacalone, Fontana and Bonanno. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Gualtiero Basilone, Institute for the Study of Anthropogenic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment, Department of Earth System Sciences and Technologies for the Environment, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy
    Gabriella Lo Cicero, Institute for the Study of Anthropogenic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment, Department of Earth System Sciences and Technologies for the Environment, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy

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