Monitoring the Miramare Marine Reserve: Assessment of protection efficiency

Abstract

Abstract The Miramare Reserve, in the Gulf of Trieste (North Adriatic‐Italy), is a small marine protected area (121 hectares) for research, education and conservation and is managed by WWF Italy. Different techniques for taking a qualitative and quantitative census of the fish species, for mapping the nests of Gobius cruentatus, Tripterygion delaisi and Cbromis chromis, for studying the reproductive behaviour of C. cbromis and for measuring the sea ambient noise were used. Visual census techniques were applied in the comparison of two areas which were similar from a morphological point of view, but differed in human activity.