Fishery Bulletin articles from April 2006

Fishery Bulletin archives from April 2006

Spawning season, maturity sizes, and fecundity in blacktail comber (Serranus atricauda) (Serranidae) from the eastern-central Atlantic.
April 1, 2006... Abstract--Blacktail comber (Serranus atricauda Gunther) is a commercially important species in the Canary Islands fisheries. A total of 425 individuals were collected and histological techniques were used to investigate the reproductive data....

Benthic invertebrates that form habitat on deep banks off southern California, with special reference to deep sea coral.
April 1, 2006... Abstract--There is increasing interest in the potential impacts that fishing activities have on megafaunal benthic invertebrates occurring in continental shelf and slope ecosystems. We examined how the structure, size, and high-density...

A key to selected rockfishes (Sebastes spp.) based on mitochondrial DNA restriction fragment analysis.
April 1, 2006... Abstract--Larval and juvenile rockfishes (Sebastes spp.) are difficult to identify using morphological characters. We developed a key based on sizes of restriction endonuclease fragments of the NADH dehydrogenase-3 and -4 (ND3/ND4) and 12S and...

Variation in yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) catches related to El Nino-Southern Oscillation events at the entrance to the Gulf of California.
April 1, 2006... Abstract--Fishery catch data on yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) were examined to study the effects of El Nino events between 1990 and 1999 for an area in the northeastern tropical Pacific (18-24[degrees]N, 112-104[degrees]W). The data were...

Estimating the encounter rate of Atlantic capelin (Mallotus villosus) with fish eggs, based on stomach content analysis.
April 1, 2006... Abstract--The number of pelagic fish eggs (cod and cunner) found in stomachs of capelin (Mallotus villosus) sampled in coastal Newfoundland was used to estimate the encounter rates between capelin and prey, and thus the effective volume swept...

A production modeling approach to the assessment of the horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus population in Delaware Bay.
April 1, 2006... Abstract--Horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) is harvested commercially, used by the biomedical industry, and provides food for migrating shorebirds, particularly in Delaware Bay. Recently, decreasing crab population trends in this region have...

Biodiversity as an index of regime shift in the eastern Bering Sea.
April 1, 2006... Abstract--Data collected from an annual groundfish survey of the eastern Bering Sea shelf from 1975 to 2002 were used to estimate biomass and biodiversity indexes for two fish guilds: flatfish and roundfish. Biomass estimates indicated that...

Triglops dorothy, a new species of sculpin (Teleostei: Scorpaeniformes: Cottidae) from the southern Sea of Okhotsk.
April 1, 2006... Abstract--A new species of the cottid genus Triglops Reinhardt is described on the basis of 21 specimens collected in Aniva Bay, southern Sakhalin Island, Russia, and off Kitami, on the northern coast of Hokkaido, Japan, at depths of 73-117 m....

A comparison of two fishery-independent survey programs used to define the population structure of American lobster (Homarus americanus) in the Gulf of Maine.
April 1, 2006... Abstract--The population structure and abundance of the American lobster (Homarus americanus) stock in the Gulf of Maine are defined by data derived from a fishery-independent trawl survey program conducted by the National Marine Fisheries...

Juvenile fish assemblages collected on unconsolidated sediments of the southeast United States continental shelf.
April 1, 2006... Abstract--Patterns were investigated in juvenile fish use of unconsolidated sediments on the southeast United States continental shelf off Georgia. Juvenile fish and environmental data were sampled at ten stations along a 110-km cross-shelf...

Growth and maturity of salmon sharks (Lamna ditropis) in the eastern and western North Pacific, and comments on back-calculation methods.
April 1, 2006... Abstract--Age and growth estimates for salmon sharks (Latona ditropis) in the eastern North Pacific were derived from 182 vertebral centra collected from sharks ranging in length from 62.2 to 213.4 cm precaudal length (PCL) and compared to...

Potential causes of mortality for horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) during the biomedical bleeding process.
April 1, 2006... Biomedical companies catch and bleed horseshoe crabs for the production of Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL), a product used for protecting public health (Berkson and Shuster, 1999). LAL is a clotting agent, derived solely from horseshoe crab...

A study of tagging methods for the sea cucumber Cucumaria frondosa in the waters off Maine.
April 1, 2006... The sea cucumber fishery in waters off Maine is developing and has recently experienced great increases in landings, corresponding to expanding export markets. Between 1994 and 1996, reported landings ranged from one to three million pounds...

Parameterizing probabilities for estimating age-composition distributions for mixture models.
April 1, 2006... When estimating parameters that constitute a discrete probability distribution {[p.sub.j]}, it is difficult to determine how constraints should be made to guarantee that the estimated parameters {[[??].sub.j]} constitute a probability...

Morphometric differentiation in small juveniles of the pink spotted shrimp (Farfantepenaeus brasiliensis) and the southern pink shrimp (F. notialis) in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.
April 1, 2006... The morphometric and morphological characters of the rostrum have been widely used to identify penaeid shrimp species (Heales et al., 1985; Dall et al., 1990; Pendrey et al., 1999). In this setting, one of the constraints in studies of penaeid...

Exploring intraspecific life history patterns in sharks.
April 1, 2006... Marine ecosystems compose the major source (85%) of world fisheries production (Garcia and Newton, 1997). Although only a few fish species tend to dominate fishery catches (Jennings et al., 2001), a large diversity of fishes representing varied...