SCRS/2020/058 Collect. Vol. Sci. Pap. ICCAT, 77(3): 343-374 (2020) ADDITIONS TO THE ITALIAN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON SWORDFISH (XIPHIAS GLADIUS, LINNAEUS, 1758) AND COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW Antonio Di Natale1 SUMMARY After the very first attempt to list together the many papers published so far on swordfish (Xiphias gladius) by Italian scientists, concerning the biology of this species, the fisheries and many other scientific and cultural issues, it was necessary to prepare an addition to the annotated bibliography published in 2019. Therefore, the present paper provides 185 additional papers, all annotated with specific keywords, which brings the available papers on this species up to 715, all duly annotated. This paper also provides an overview of the papers published over the centuries and decades, the main authors and the score of the main topics and themes included in the papers. This updated bibliography was set together to serve the scientists and to help them in finding some rare references that might be useful for their work. RÉSUMÉ Après la première tentative d’établir une liste des nombreux articles publiés à ce jour sur l'espadon (Xiphias gladius) par des scientifiques italiens, concernant la biologie de cette espèce, la pêche et bien d'autres questions scientifiques et culturelles, un complément à la bibliographie annotée publiée en 2019 s’est avéré nécessaire. Par conséquent, le présent document fournit 185 articles supplémentaires, tous annotés avec des mots clés spécifiques, ce qui porte à 715 le nombre d'articles disponibles sur cette espèce, tous dûment annotés. Ce document fournit également un aperçu des articles publiés au cours des siècles et des décennies, les principaux auteurs et la note des principaux sujets et thèmes inclus dans ceux-ci. Cette bibliographie mise à jour a été établie pour les scientifiques afin de les aider à trouver des références rares qui pourraient leur être utiles dans leurs travaux. RESUMEN Tras el primer intento de establecer una lista conjunta de los numerosos trabajos publicados hasta la fecha sobre el pez espada (Xiphias gladius) por científicos italianos, relacionados con la biología de esta especie, con las pesquerías y con muchas otras cuestiones científicas y culturales, fue necesario preparar un añadido a la bibliografía anotada publicada en 2019. Por lo tanto, el presente documento proporciona 185 documentos adicionales, todos ellos anotados con palabras clave específicas, lo que eleva a 715 los documentos disponibles sobre esta especie, todos ellos debidamente anotados. En el presente documento también se ofrece un panorama general de los documentos publicados a lo largo de los siglos y décadas, los principales autores y la veintena de los principales temas y asuntos incluidos en los documentos. Esta bibliografía actualizada se reunió para servir a los científicos y ayudarles a hallar algunas raras referencias que podrían resultarles útiles para su trabajo. KEYWORS Swordfish, Xiphias gladius, bibliography, biology, reproduction, feeding, analytical techniques, behavior, history, traditions, fisheries, catches, fishery techniques, technology, systematics, rules, laws, privileges, nomenclature, economy, ethnography, anthropology. 1Aquastudio Research Institute, Via Trapani 6, 98121 Messina, Italy. [email protected] 343 1. Foreword After the publication of the very first annotated bibliography of Italian authors on swordfish (Xiphias gladius, Linnaeus 1758) (Addis et al., 2019), it was necessary to further explore the archives for recovering additional papers which escaped form the previous review. As it was reported in the previous paper, the choice was driven by the fact that this species is one of the most studied and observed in Italy since historical times, one of the most important for the Mediterranean fisheries. Many papers were written in Italian, a language which is not on the list of the three used in ICCAT (English, French and Spanish), and possibly some scientists may have problems in understanding the contents. Another reason for setting-up the annotated bibliography is because many papers are not available in electronic format and therefore some young colleagues, who are not used to study and mine in traditional libraries anymore, seem not able to detect the studies that have been carried out so far on the many aspects of this species, therefore sometimes duplicating efforts and not taking into account the previous scientific findings. However, as a matter of fact, most of the modern (the last 500 years) studies on swordfish had Italian or Spanish authors, even if Italian authors are clearly the large majority. Therefore, it is a sort of national proudness to provide an update of the list of papers on the Mediterranean swordfish (Xiphias gladius, Linnaeus 1758) that were published in 2019, annotating them with keywords for improving the opportunities to detect them with an electronic searching engine. The importance of an annotated bibliography on swordfish (Xiphias gladius), mostly focused on the Mediterranean Sea (but not only) is clear, even if the monumental work by Sisci (1984) already provided an important amount of literature references and knowledge, but mostly related to the harpoon fishery in the Strait of Messina. 2. Criteria The bibliography on swordfish (Xiphias gladius) included in this work was selected when an Italian scientist was the only author of a paper or when one or more Italian scientists were among the authors of collective papers. This was the only criterium used for selecting the many papers, independently if they were peer-review papers, books, not-peer-review papers, papers present in conferences or meetings or congresses, reports to public administrations or project reports. Of course, each paper included in the list is directly related to swordfish (Xiphias gladius, Linnaeus, 1758), even if, in some cases, the swordfish is concerned by just a part of the text. For the very ancient papers, it is reported the first edition that it was possibly to find, independently from the date of the original work. This work implied also to check all bibliographic references listed in each paper, in a sort of a never-ending duty, but this difficult approach allowed to find also rare local or even forgotten papers. When vernacular names or old scientific names were used in the original paper, they were possibly listed in the annotation, but of course sometimes it was necessary to list just the main ones. The annotations required each paper to be checked in detail and this implied a huge workload. The annotations show the main subjects in the content and, as it was done in the previous liust provided by Addis et al. (2019), the descriptors proposed by ASFIS (Fagetti, Privett and Sears, 2009) were mostly used, adding additional descriptors when necessary. As concerns the main species included in each reference, both the international common name(s) and the Latin name(s) were used. 3. Discussion As it was previously reported by Addis et al (2019), one of the major problem for this additional list was again the need to homogenise the style of all citations, which were reported under many different styles. Apparently, this fact can appear as a minor problem, but it required a very important amount of work and time. 344 The large number of titles which are now available, including those reported in 2019, surely constitutes a very useful reference list for all the colleagues working on swordfish (Xiphias gladius, Linnaeus, 1758), and it includes also extremely rare papers on various subjects. The opportunities provided by the web are improving the number of available articles on this species and its fisheries. This annotated bibliography required again an incredible amount of work and a lot of attention, due to the fact that several documents were published not only by marine scientists, but by historians, archaeologists, economists, sociologists, economists, literates or journalists, making the search very wide and difficult, certainly very multidisciplinary. Even limiting the bibliography to the works where an Italian scientist was among the authors, the number of citations that it was possible to discover so far is very important, being anyway conscious that the list is certainly incomplete and possibly it will never be complete. In many cases, when checking a document, it was possible to discover additional literature which was previously not available, transforming a part of this work as a continuous journey following an Ariadne’s thread. At the same time, during this heavy work, it was amazing to learn so many details about this species, which was exploited since historical times. Going through the various titles (and the text behind) in the bibliography it is possible to find important amounts of catch data, of fishery and biological information, historical environmental information, social and economic aspects, while in many papers there are various aspects related to the ancient culture and traditions linked to this species and its fisheries, mirroring its extremely ancient historical roots. This work is providing and listing additional 185 papers, which are now added to the previous list provided by Addis et al., (2019), bringing the total to 715 papers2 (Figure 1), most edited in the XX century, but with important contributions in previous centuries. A total of 77 papers were edited before the XX century and some are papers edited in historical classical times. Between 1920 and 1939 there was a good production of scientific papers on swordfish (17 in the ‘20s and 21 in the ‘30s), mostly due to the many field activities carried out by the Institute of Zoology of the University of Messina. Of course, between 1940 and 1949 the number of papers decreased to the minimum, due to the 2nd World War. A remarkable increasing of the Italian scientific production on bluefin tuna initiated in the ‘80s, when the first national research triennial plan was adopted by the Ministry of Merchant Marine, followed by a series of triennial plans, with an Italian coordinated activity on large pelagic species, till the year 2002, jumping from 16 papers in the ‘70s to 98 papers in the ‘80s and the peak of 169 papers in the ‘90s.