Interim Report of the Working Group on Small Pelagic Fishes, their Ecosystems and Climate Impact (WGSPEC)

The Working Group on Small Pelagic Fishes, their Ecosystems and Climate Impact (WGSPEC) had its annual meeting in Koblenz, Germany, 5–9 April 2016, which was at-tended by 5 scientists from three different countries.The meeting mainly focused on ToR a) with contributors to the paper “Changes in NE Atlantic and Mediterranean in mid-1990s “gathering together to analyse and discuss fish and plankton long-term data sets. Preliminary results based on Principal Component Analysis suggest a regional-dependent response of the biotic component to the hydro-climatic variability determined by large-scale climatic oscillations, such as the AMO and NAO. Further results will be produced by applying the shiftogram approach to the same datasets and shared by correspondence, aiming to complete and submit the paper by the end of 2016.The meeting also provided the opportunity to agree the final draft of the manuscript “Synchronization of Mediterranean pelagic fish populations with the North Atlantic cli-mate variability” that will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal by the end of July 2016.