The Xesh of live healthy Wsh is sterile; microorganisms
are only present on the outer surfaces (gills, skin) and in the
gastro-intestinal tract. Immediately post-mortem, the Xesh
is colonized by a wide variety of microorganisms with a
broad temperature range, due to the poikilotherm nature of
Wsh (Gram & Huss, 1996).
Table 2 shows the results concerning microbial growth
in Mediterranean horse mackerel and blue jack mackerel
muscle, respectively, during storage in ice. TVB, S. putrefaciens
and Pseudomonas spp. were used as microbial indices
to evaluate the microbiological quality of the Mediterranean
horse mackerel and blue jack mackerel muscle during
storage in ice. The initial counts of TVB in blue jack mackerel
muscle were, not surprisingly, slightly higher than Mediterranean
horse mackerel muscle ones, since trawled Wsh
usually carry bacterial loads 10–100 times greater than linecaught
Wsh. This increase is attributed to dragging along the
ocean bottom, which stirs up the sand and contaminates
the Wsh, and to compaction of the Wsh, causing gut contents
to be expressed (Jackson, AcuV, & Dickson, 1997; Ward &
Baj, 1988). The results of Student’s t-test conWrmed this
observation, as the TVB counts were statistically diVerent
for the two species until the eighth day of ice storage. There
was an initial lag phase with no signiWcant growth of TVB
in Mediterranean horse mackerel and blue jack mackerel
muscle during the Wrst 6 and 4 days of storage, respectively.