Reproductive ecology of the witch guitarfish Zapteryx xyster Jordan & Evermann, 1896 (Chondrichtyes: Trygonorrhinidae) in the Gulf of Tehuantepec, Mexican Pacific

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (7) ◽  
pp. 844
Author(s):  
A. M. Torres-Huerta ◽  
E. Cruz-Acevedo ◽  
P. E. Carrasco-Bautista ◽  
J. F. Meraz-Hernando ◽  
E. J. Ramírez-Chávez ◽  
...  

From January 2008 to December 2009, 451 specimens of witch guitarfish Zapteryx xyster were caught in the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Total weight, total length (TL), sex, maturity stage and catch depth were recorded for each specimen. Maturity stage distribution exhibited significant differences with respect to depth. The data indicated that adults migrated towards shallow waters (25–37m) to reproduce, starting in February. Males reached maturity at 44cmTL, whereas females reached maturity at 48cmTL. Witch guitarfish females are synchronous; therefore, ovulation and mating begin in March and parturition begins in April. Females showed a 2-year cycle with consecutive vitellogenesis and gestation. Fecundity was five to eight embryos (mean six embryos) and the sex ratio of embryos was 1:1. Birth occurred in April and May, with an average size at parturition of 17.3cmTL. There was sexual dichromatism between males and females during the breeding period, and sexual polymorphism in adult females. The incidental catch of the witch guitarfish during courtship and mating threatens the survival of this species.

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Selvi Oktaviyani ◽  
Mennofatria Boer ◽  
Yonvitner Yonvitner

<p>Ikan kurisi (<em>Nemipterus japonicus</em>) merupakan salah satu sumber daya ikan ekonomis penting di Perairan Teluk Banten dan banyak didaratkan di Pelabuhan Perikanan Nusantara (PPN) Karangantu, Banten. Intensitas penangkapan yang tinggi akan menyebabkan tangkap lebih (<em>overfishing</em>), sehingga mengancam kelestarian ikan kurisi. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui beberapa aspek biologi ikan kurisi di Perairan Teluk Banten, seperti struktur ukuran panjang, rasio kelamin, hubungan panjang berat, tingkat kematangan gonad, ukuran panjang rata-rata tertangkap (Lc) dan ukuran pertama kali matang gonad (Lm). Informasi yang diperoleh dapat menjadi bahan pertimbangan dalam kegiatan pengelolaan perikanan. Lokasi pengambilan contoh dilakukan di Pelabuhan Perikanan Nusantara (PPN) Karangantu, Banten dari bulan Mei hingga Agustus 2012. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ukuran panjang total ikan kurisi<em> </em>berkisar antara 98 dan 211 mm. Perbandingan kelamin jantan dan betina dalam keadaan seimbang dan memiliki pola pertumbuhan allometrik negatif yang menunjukkan pertumbuhan panjang lebih cepat dibandingkan pertumbuhan beratnya. Lebih dari 50% ikan-ikan yang diamati baik jantan maupun betina selama bulan pengamatan belum matang gonad (<em>immature</em>).  Ukuran pertama kali matang gonad adalah 196 mm sedangkan ukuran panjang rata-rata tertangkap adalah 146 mm. Banyaknya ikan yang tertangkap dalam ukuran kecil (kurang dari panjang pertama kali matang gonad) akan mengganggu kelestarian ikan kurisi.</p><p><em><br /></em></p><p><em>Japanese threadfin bream </em>(Nemipterus japonicus<span style="text-decoration: underline;">)</span><em> is one of the most important economical fish resources in the Gulf of Banten and many landed at Archipelago Fishing Port (PPN) of Karangantu. High intensity of fishing activity can cause an overfihing, and threat sustainability of japanese threadfin bream. The research was aimed to determine some biological aspects of japanese threadfin bream in the Gulf of Banten, such as structure of the length, sex ratio, length-weight relationship, gonad maturity stage, the average length of captured (Lc) and the length of first maturity (Lm). It is believed that the collected information can be taken into consideration in the fisheries management activities. The sample was collected at PPN Karangantu, Banten from May to August 2012. The result showed that the length of </em><em>this fish </em><em>ranged between 98 and 211 mm. Ratio of male and female is balance and have negative allometric growth pattern show that the length of growth is more faster than the weight of growth. More than 50% of fish sample both males and females were immature gonads. During observation, length of  first maturity was 196 mm and the average length of captured was 146 mm. </em><em>Many fishes caught was smaller than Lm, It will interfere the sustainability of japanese threadfin bream.</em></p>


Crustaceana ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 92 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 1279-1293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan C. Castro-Salgado ◽  
Mauricio Ramírez-Rodríguez ◽  
Gustavo-De la Cruz-Agüero ◽  
Verónica Castañeda-Fernández-de-Lara

Abstract Spatial and temporal distribution patterns of the warrior swimming crab Callinectes bellicosus fishery in the Mexican Pacific were investigated. Geo-referenced commercial trap capture data derived from 44 trips in the Bahia Magdalena were analysed. Three fishing zones (Z1, inner; Z2, middle; Z3, mouth of the bay) and two climate seasons (warm, July-December; and cold, January-June) were defined previously. There were 1099 traps in Z1, 715 in Z2 and 2111 in Z3; in the warm season, 2091 traps were checked, whereas 1834 were checked in the cold season. The average number of individuals per trap (CPUE) varied by sex, zone and season, however, male crabs always predominated. During the warm season, large males (CW > 115 mm) exhibited the greatest value of CPUE. On average, the males represented 77% during the warm season and 84% during the cold season. The average size of the males (125 ± 0.843 mm CW) was significantly higher than the average size of females (121 ± 1.140 mm CW). The catch was composed of large mature males but females were absent in Z1; in comparison, both large mature males and females, in addition to ovigerous females, composed the catch at the mouth of the bay (Z3). Crab abundance was notably reduced in the cold season, especially for female crabs. The temporal behaviour of the warrior swimming crab in Bahia Magdalena is similar to that reported from the coastal lagoons of the Gulf of California; however, the low presence of females throughout the year could be related to their preferred environmental conditions, which include deeper areas with more current circulation, like those that occur at the mouth of the bay. These data corroborate the necessity to interpret with caution the crab population dynamics solely based on results derived from fishing with traps in coastal lagoons.


Zootaxa ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 2603 (1) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
JOSE MARIA AGUILAR-CAMACHO ◽  
JOSE LUIS CARBALLO

Chalinidae is a family of haplosclerid sponges with a delicate reticulated chaonosomal skeleton of uni-, pauci- or multispicular primary lines which are connected by unispicular secondary lines, and with an ectosomal skeleton, if present, formed by a regular hexagonal, unispicular, tangential reticulation (Weerdt 2002). Currently, the family harbors only five valid genera (Chalinula, Cladocroce, Dendrectilla, Dendroxea and Haliclona; Soest et al. 2008), although recent molecular studies suggest that a new rearrangement of the present classification is needed (Redmond et al. 2007). Cladocroce was described by Topsent (1892) from specimens collected in the Atlantic Ocean. The principal characteristic of this genus is the presence of multispicular fiber tracts with a rather dense subisotropic reticulation in between (Weerdt 2002). After that, 10 species have been described, most of them from deep waters and cold climates (Putchakarn et al. 2004). Only three species have been found living in shallow waters: C. aculeata Pulitzer-Finali, 1982 from the Great Barrier Reef, C. burapha Putchakarn et al., 2004 from the Gulf of Thailand, and C. tubulosa Pulitzer-Finali, 1993 from the port of Mombasa, in Kenya. Sponge taxonomy studies in the Mexican Pacific coast have been focused mainly on hadromerids, and particularly on boring sponges (Carballo et al. 2008), and the current knowledge of haplosclerids is very scarce (Cruz-Barraza & Carballo 2006). In this paper, a new species of Cladocroce is described and compared with the other species recorded worldwide. With this contribution the genus Cladocroce increases to 12 species.


Zootaxa ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 2968 (1) ◽  
pp. 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
CRISTIAN SIMÓN ABDALA ◽  
ANDRÉS SEBASTIÁN QUINTEROS ◽  
FEDERICO ARIAS ◽  
SABRINA PORTELLI ◽  
ANTONIO PALAVECINO

We describe a new species of the iguanian genus Liolaemus of Northwestern Argentina in Salta Province. This new lizard is a member of the L. boulengeri group, and within this group it is a member of the L. darwinii subgroup. With the addition of the species described here, the L. darwinii group now contains 19 species. Like most of the members of this group, the new taxon exhibits sexual dichromatism, showing a unique color pattern in males and females. The color pattern is characterized by the presence of a pre-scapular spot and lateral black stripes, unique within the L. darwinii group. Liolaemus diaguita sp nov inhabits a region where bushes are the predominant vegetation, in Quebrada de Las Conchas, in Guachipas Department, Salta Province, which has an elevation between 1200–2500 m.


2012 ◽  
Vol 93 (4) ◽  
pp. 1097-1104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Berenice Hernández-Aguilar ◽  
Leonardo Andrés Abitia-Cárdenas ◽  
Xchel Gabriel Moreno-Sánchez ◽  
Marcial Arellano-Martínez ◽  
Eduardo González-Rodríguez

The sailfish Istiophorus platypterus is one of the most common billfish species in the Mexican Pacific. Information about its feeding habits in the coastal region of Acapulco, Guerrero is extremely limited. In the present study we quantified the diet of sailfish, based on captures made from March 2008 to December 2009 by the sport fishing fleet of Acapulco. We analysed a total of 561 stomachs, of which 254 contained food (45%). The size interval of examined specimens was between 101 and 212 cm postorbital length and between 15 and 47 kg total weight. In general, teleosts were the most important prey, followed by cephalopods. According to index of relative importance, the most important species in the diet were the fish Auxis thazard (63.04%) and Fistularia commersonii (6.62%), followed by the cephalopod Octopus spp. (4.58%). There were no significant differences in the diet by sex (males and females), sexual maturity (immature and mature), or by season (warm and cold seasons). In all cases the most important prey species was A. thazard. We conclude that the sailfish I. platypterus off Acapulco behaves as a specialist predator because, despite the consumption of a high number of prey items, it feeds preferentially on a reduced number of prey species that form schools, and are available and abundant in the ocean.


2016 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelio Ramírez-Bautista ◽  
Uriel Hernández-Salinas ◽  
J. Gastón Zamora-Abrego

Determination of growth rate provides an important component of an organism’s life history, making estimations of size at maturity, survival rate, and longevity possible. Here, we report on growth rate of males and females of the tropical tree lizard Urosaurus bicarinatus, in a seasonal environment in the state of Jalisco on the Mexican Pacific Coast. We calculated body growth rates and fitted these to the Von Bertalanffy, the logistic-by-length, and the logistic-by-weight growth models. The Von Bertalanffy model provided the best fit, and we used it to analyze the growth pattern. Males and females did not differ in estimated asymptotic size and other characteristic growth parameters. Estimated growth curve predicted an age at maturity of 38 mm SVL on 120 days for males, and 40 mm SVL on 170 days for females. On the basis of the similarities in the growth rates between the sexes, comparisons were made between seasons, and we found that the average rate of growth was slightly, albeit insignificantly, higher in the rainy season than in the dry season. The similarities in the growth patterns for the sexes of this species might be indicative of variance in its life history traits (e.g., fecundity, egg size) compared to those of other populations of this species and other species of this genus; therefore, it is important to document interpopulation differences to understand the evolutionary changes that have led to optimal adaptation in a particular environment more accurately.


1982 ◽  
Vol 60 (11) ◽  
pp. 2641-2645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Berrill ◽  
Michael Arsenault

In southern Ontario in the springs of 1980, 1981, and 1982 the crayfish Orconectes rusticus bred explosively when water temperatures rose above 4 °C. Copulations occurred frequently as sexually mature males and females wandered over the substrate at night. Males fought with each other and interrupted copulating pairs. In 1980 and 1981, females began to sequester themselves and extrude their eggs 11–12 days after copulations began. Males then gradually wandered and fought less, began feeding, and the breeding period ended approximately 4 weeks after the initiation of frequent copulations. In 1982, a delayed spring resulted in a far shorter breeding period. Laboratory experiments indicated that although a rise in water temperature initiated breeding events, including egg extrusion, the degree of necessary temperature increase may be inversely correlated with the duration of lengthening photoperiod to which females are exposed. Females which did not copulate in spring extruded eggs which were mostly infertile, emphasizing the importance of spring copulation in this northern orconectid.


2017 ◽  
Vol 188 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-154
Author(s):  
Maria O. Chalienko ◽  
Marianna V. Kalinina

Population of pale sea urchin Strongylocentrotus pallidus in Peter the Great Bay is investigated. The samples for its size structure and distribution were collected at the depth from 5 to 700 m in July 2013, 2014 and in April 2015 and the samples for the state of gonads, intestines and age structure - at the depths of 41, 69, 280, 346, and 670 m in early April 2015. The size structure at different depths is significantly different: the large individuals with average size of 70.0 mm (portion of commercial ones 98 %) occupy mainly the middle shelf area with the depths of 55-100 m, deeper at the depths of 100-200 m the portion of commercial urchins is lower (67 % in 2014 and 92 % in 2015), and the continental slope (depth > 200 m) is occupied by mainly (77-96 %) non-commercial individuals with average size of 35.5 mm. Age of sea urchins was determined by the growth zones on plates of their shells processed by Jensen method and varied from 3 to 12 years. The growth rate of sea urchins from the shelf areas was approximately in 1.5 times higher as compared with those from the continental slope, primarily due to different conditions of feeding. The gonads cellular composition was defined for the samples of 50 cells per female. The cells were differentiated in the categories of oocytes proliferation, oocytes differentiation, and mature eggs, and the gonad maturity stage was determined by domination of these categories, taking into accounts the S. pallidus reproductive cycle. In spring, the sea urchins from the shelf areas (depths of 41 and 69 m) were generally more mature as compared with those from the continental slope (depths of 280 and 346 m). However, correlation between the gonadal index and depth of habitat was not significant because the mature females were sampled in any depth. Composition of intestinal content and food components were determined visually, looking the bolus under binocular microscope. The sea urchins intestines were mostly filled with detritus at the depth of 41 m, sponges (Suberites sp.) at the depth of 69 m (70 % of cases), and unedible substances as silt and sand at the depth of 280, 346 and 670 m, minor fractions were the algal litter, remains of crustaceans, and detritus.


2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1852) ◽  
pp. 20162146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicky Rollings ◽  
Emily J. Uhrig ◽  
Randolph W. Krohmer ◽  
Heather L. Waye ◽  
Robert T. Mason ◽  
...  

Life-history strategies vary dramatically between the sexes, which may drive divergence in sex-specific senescence and mortality rates. Telomeres are tandem nucleotide repeats that protect the ends of chromosomes from erosion during cell division. Telomeres have been implicated in senescence and mortality because they tend to shorten with stress, growth and age. We investigated age-specific telomere length in female and male red-sided garter snakes, Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis . We hypothesized that age-specific telomere length would differ between males and females given their divergent reproductive strategies. Male garter snakes emerge from hibernation with high levels of corticosterone, which facilitates energy mobilization to fuel mate-searching, courtship and mating behaviours during a two to four week aphagous breeding period at the den site. Conversely, females remain at the dens for only about 4 days and seem to invest more energy in growth and cellular maintenance, as they usually reproduce biennially. As male investment in reproduction involves a yearly bout of physiologically stressful activities, while females prioritize self-maintenance, we predicted male snakes would experience more age-specific telomere loss than females. We investigated this prediction using skeletochronology to determine the ages of individuals and qPCR to determine telomere length in a cross-sectional study. For both sexes, telomere length was positively related to body condition. Telomere length decreased with age in male garter snakes, but remained stable in female snakes. There was no correlation between telomere length and growth in either sex, suggesting that our results are a consequence of divergent selection on life histories of males and females. Different selection on the sexes may be the physiological consequence of the sexual dimorphism and mating system dynamics displayed by this species.


PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4460
Author(s):  
Jorge de Jesus Tirado-Ibarra ◽  
Mariany Loya-Rodriguez ◽  
Jose Carlos Morales-Arevalo ◽  
Isabel Rosario Muñoz-Garcia ◽  
Francisco Martinez-Perez ◽  
...  

The shrimp fishery is one of the most important fisheries in the world, although the low selectivity from trawling nets has led to the capture of a large number of non-target species. Shrimp-bycatch species include a large number of fish and invertebrate species, of which fish species are the most abundant. The present study aims to determine the community structure as well as the average sizes at first maturity of the fish species from shrimp-bycatch caught from industrial fisheries in the Mexican Pacific from Sinaloa to Guerrero, from January to March 2015. The shrimp-bycatch fish diversity value was found to be 2.22. A total of 37 species of finfish were found, of which five were considered rare. The fish species with the highest Importance Value Index (IVI) levels were Pseudupeneus grandisquamis, Paralichthys woolmani, Lutjanus peru and Diapterus peruvianus. The average size at first maturity was calculated for all species. Of the analysed organisms, 90% were in the juvenile stage, including species with riverine and artisanal fisheries. The present study demonstrates the risk within marine populations to different non-target species due to the poor selectivity of shrimp trawls.


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