Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India

Growth and mortality of longspine seabream, Argyrops spinifer (Teleostei: sparidae) in the Arabian Gulf waters off Qatar

Volume 38 Issue 1&2

M. El-Sayed, Abdel-Fattah and Kamal Abdel-Bary

Abstract

Age, growth and mortality of longspine seabream, Argyrops spinifer in the Arabian Gulf waters off Qatar were investigated. me-study was conducted on 664 fish obtained from Qatar National Fishing Company. The results revealed that the maximum age of studied fish was 18 years. The length/scale relationship was TL = -7.1478 + 0.232TS (r=0.925). The relationship between total length and total weight was best fit by a curvilinear equation: TW = 0.0398TL,.,',T,h.e von Bertalanffy growth equation obtained from backcalculated dataawas : L = 81.01 [1-e-0.094 ('OB)]. The rates of growth in length and weight (% increment) were highest at the end of the first year of life, followed by a gradual decrease throughout the fish life. The instantaneous total mortality estimate (Z), natural mortality (M) and fishing mortality (F) were 0.43, 0.29 and 0.14, respectively, while survival rate was 0.65. 

Keywords

Argyrops spinifer, age, growth, mortality, Arabian Gulf 

Date : 30-12-1996