Fish Ecology of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf

Abstract

Among the important factors of Red Sea and Persian Gulf ecology are the following:

• A. The Red Sea is a deep basin with warm surface-to-bottom water; it has an extremely shallow sill at the narrow southern entrance allowing very little exchange of water and creating, therefore, a largely separate water body; its geographical position and extension cause in a northward direction a declining temperature and an ascending salinity gradient in the surface water.

• B. The Persian Gulf is a shallow basin with no sill separating it from the open ocean; it has high temperature maxima and high salinities, but no prominent gradients have been observed.

Abstract of the paper delivered by the late Prof. H. Steinitz at the Kiel Symposium.