Length-weight Relationships of Three Fish Species from Yellow Sea along Coastal Waters of Shandong Province, China

Huahua Fang, Daquan Zhou and Xiaoyu Dong*

Marine Science and Engineering College, Qingdao Agricultural University, No. 700 Changcheng Road, Chengyang, Qingdao, Shandong, China.

ABSTRACT

In this study, length-weight relationships (LWR) of three fish species (Lepidotrigla microptera, Liparis tanakae and Trachidermus fasciatus) from the Yellow Sea along coastal waters of Shandong province, China were estimated. Ninety-one samples were collected from March to June 2019 through trawl nets in the Yellow sea area (36°27′02″N 121°08′68″E). The length-weight relationships of Lepidotrigla microptera, Liparis tanakae and Trachidermus fasciatus can be expressed as WL.microptera = 0.0123L2.92, WL. Tanakae = 0.0848L3.46, WT. fasciatus = 0.067L3.06, respectively. The values of exponent b ranged from 2.92 to 3.46 for these three species. Results from the present study indicate that the weight increase of Liparis tanakae and Trachidermus fasciatus was positive allometric during the survey period. This study provided basic information for fisheries management in Yellow Sea along coastal waters of Shandong province.

Article Information

Received 22 Februay 2020

Revised 19 March 2020

Accepted 11 May 2020

Available online 10 September 2021

(early access)

Published 26 April 2022

Authors’ Contribution

HF analysed the data and wrote the paper. DZ collected data. XD designed the paper and proofread the manuscript.

Key words

Length-weight relationships, Lepidotrigla microptera, Liparis tanakae, Trachidermus fasciatus, Yellow sea

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.pjz/20200222180213

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

0030-9923/2022/0004-1959 $ 9.00/0

Copyright 2022 by the authors. Licensee Zoological Society of Pakistan.

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Estimating parameters of length-weight relationships (LWR) have important implication for fisheries research, fisheries management and evaluating the condition factors (Froese, 2006; Andrade et al., 2015). For example, length-weight relationship can be used to estimate accurate weight when calculating the production over biomass ratio. (Torres et al., 2012; Nie et al., 2013). In addition, the length-weight relationship can also be applied in deriving comparisons between different fish species in life history and morphology between different fish populations from regions (Goncalves et al., 1997; Petrakis and Stergion, 1995), and tracking fish growth in terms of seasonal variations. Lepidotrigla microptera (Günther, 1873), Liparis tanakae (Gilbert and Burke, 1912) and Trachidermus fasciatus (Heckel, 1837) are native species in Yellow Sea area. Although the basic biology information for most fishing species in the Yellow Sea area has been well studied, the LWR for the three given species (L. microptera, L. tanakae and T. fasciatus) in this area are still unknown. This study filled the information blank and aiming to provide basic information for fisheries management in Yellow Sea along coastal waters of Shandong province.

Materials and methods

Ninety-one specimens of these three given fish species were collected from Yellow Sea along coastal waters of Shandong province, China through trawl nets between March and June 2019. After capture, all fishes were immediately placed on ice and then transported to laboratory for further analysis. Scientific names for each species were checked according to FishBase. The total length (L, mm) and body weight (W, g) for L. microptera and L. tanakae were measured to the nearest 1 mm and 0.1 g. The T. fasciatus was measured to the nearest 0.1mm and 0.001g for its small size.

The relationship between total length (L) and body weight (W) were calculated by the power regression W = aLb (PASW Statistics 19.0). Values of the exponent b provide information regarding to the fish growth. When b = 3, the increase of fish weight was isometric. When b > 3, the increase of fish weight was allometric (positive if b >3, negative if b < 3, Morey et al., 2003). Ln-ln plots were done to remove outliers within species. The 95% confidence limits for b and a (CL95%) were calculated

Table I. Descriptive statistics and the estimated parameters of length–weight relationships in three fish species from Yellow Sea along coastal waters of Shandong province, China.

N, the number of individuals; Max and Min, the maximum and minimum values of the total length or weight; a and b, the estimated parameter for LWR; CI, confidence interval; R2, determinant coefficient.

(Froese, 2006). The statistical analyses were conducted in PASW Statistics 19.0.

Results and discussion

Descriptive statistics and estimated parameters of LWR for three fish species given were shown in Table I. The R2 values for all species ranged between 0.953 and 0.990. The length-weight relationships of L. microptera, L. tanakae and T. fasciatus can be expressed as WL.microptera = 0.0123L2.92, WL. Tanakae = 0.0848L3.46, WT. fasciatus = 0.067L3.06, respectively. The estimates for the parameter b varied from 2.92 to 3.46. The b value was similar with most Yellow sea species such as Zebrias zebrinus (Temminck and Schlegel, 1846), Setipinna termuifilis (Valenciennes,1848) and Pampus echinogaster (Basilewsky, 1855) which was determined by similar environmental conditions.

These data revealed that all parameters could be used safely within the length ranges given (Liu et al., 2013; Ma et al., 2017). The length ranges for T. fasciatus were narrow, because they were in juvenile stage in March. In the future studies, it is necessary to study a wider length range to overcome the limitation of the data.

In conclusion, these results contribute to the knowledge of the marine species from Yellow Sea in China, Where the given species had no previous estimates of LWR.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by “First class fishery discipline” programme in Shangdong province, China and foundation for high-level talents of Qingdao agricultural university (6631113315).

Statement of conflict of interest

The authors have declared no conflict of interest.

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