STATUS OF THE TURBOT (Scopthalmus Maeoticus, Pallas, 1814) AGGLOMERATIONS ALONG THE ROMANIAN BLACK SEA COAST

The main commercially valuable species in the Black Sea is turbot (Scophthalmus maeoticus, Pallas, 1814). Thus, turbot stock assessment is vital to ensure its sustainable use, to support economic and ecological stability, to inform science-based management decisions, and to promote the conservation of marine biodiversity. To determine turbot aggregations, the BioIndex routine, developed in R language, was used to estimate different biological indicators related to this target species. In particular, the routine allows the estimation of time series of mean abundance and biomass indices, the inverse CV of abundance indices, mean individual weight and sex ratio at the GSA level. Taking into account the biomass values resulted for the study period (2019-2020) a significant increase was observed in the values from the period 2012-2018 and the maximum yield (RMM) obtained of 329,048 tons for the Romanian area of the Black Sea.