International Journal of Marine Science 2015, Vol.5, No.30, 1-5
1
Research Report
Open Access
Length-weight relationship of coral reef associated fishes of Cuddalore, southeast
coast of India
N. Jayaprabha , S. Purusothaman, M. Srinivasan
Centre of Advanced Study in Marine Biology, Faculty of Marine Sciences, Annamalai University, Parangipettai - 608 502, Tamil Nadu, India
Corresponding author email
International Journal of Marine Science, 2015, Vol.5, No.30
doi: 10.5376/ijms.2015.05.0030
Received: 09 Mar., 2015
Accepted: 23 Apr., 2015
Published: 11 May., 2015
Copyright
©
2015
Jayaprabha et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Jayaprabha et al., 2015, Length-weight relationship of coral reef associated fishes of Cuddalore, southeast coast of India, International Journal of Marine
Science, Vol.5, No.30 1
-
5 (doi
Abstract
Length-Weight relationships (LWR) provide basic information in fisheries biology. In the present study, LW relationships
of ten species of coral reef associated fishes from Cuddalore, southeast coast of India was estimated. A total of 1263 individuals,
belonging to eight families were measured and weighed. The exponent b of length-weight relationships ranged from 2.71 to 3.20. The
LWR were significant (p<0.05) for these species. In terms of growth type, seven species had negative allometric (b<3),
Epinephelus
coioides
had isometric (b=3) and
Trachinocephelus myops
and
Upeneus vittatus
had positive allometric (b>3) growth.
Keywords
Length-weight relationship; coral reef fishes; Growth type; Cuddalore, India
Introduction
Length–weight
relationships (LWR) have important
implications
in fisheries science and
population
dynamics
(Erzini,
1994). Size of the fish is generally
relevant than age, mainly because several ecological
and physiological factors are more size dependent
than age dependent (Santos et al., 2002). It is useful in
fishery assessments for predicting weights from the
more easily measured lengths, because direct weight
measurements can take more time in the field yield
assessment and biomass calculation (Ricker, 1975;
Petrakis and Stergiou, 1995; Martin-Smith, 1996;
Garcia et al., 1998; Sinovcic et al., 2004; Froese,
2006). Knowledge
of the
relationship
between
length
and
weight
of
a fish
species
in
a given
geographic
region
is useful
for
three
reasons:
(a)
estimation of
weight-at-age
from
total
reported
catch
weight
and
length-frequency
distributions;
(b)
a practical
index
of
the
condition
of fish;
(c)
comparisons of life history
between-regions
(Petrakis and
Stergiou, 1995).
Length and weight measurements can give
information on the stock composition, life span,
mortality, growth and production (Bolger and Connoly,
1989; King, 1996; Moutopoulos and Stergiou, 2000).
Length and weight data are useful standard results of
fish sampling programs (Morato et al., 2001).
Length-weight relationships provide essential
information in fisheries biology, being useful to
determine the weight of an individual fish of known
length or total weight from length-frequency
distribution, and to compare specific growth among
different regions (Froese, 1998; Koutrakis and
Tsikliras, 2003). This relationship was initially used to
obtain information on the growth condition of fish and
to find out whether the somatic growth was isometric
or allometric (Le Cren, 1951; Ricker, 1975).
Among biometric relations in fishes, the length-weight
relationships were widely presented by authors as
useful tools with several applications in the domains
of fisheries sciences, population dynamics, ecology
and stock assessment (eg Pauly, 1993; Erzini, 1994;
King, 1995; Petrakis and Stergiou, 1995; Santos et al.,
2002). The establishment of length-weight relationships
are also essential for the calculation of production
and biomass of a fish population (Anderson and
Gutreuter, 1983).
While considering the length-weight relationship of
reef associated fishes very few studies are available.
Letourneur et al. (1998) has investigated the
length-weight relationship of fishes from coral reefs
and lagoons of New Caledonia. Mbaru et al. (2010,
2011) studied the length-weight relationship of 39
selected reef fishes in Kenyan coastal water. In India
