Biometry and size distribution of Crambionella annandalei and Chrysaora spp. along the coast of Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

The biometry and seasonal size distribution of the medusae, Crambionella annandalei and Chrysaora spp. were investigated from fortnightly gillnet landings between January 2017 and December 2018 along the West coast of the Bay of Bengal. Although both taxa exhibited strong patterns of seasonality in abundance and growth, being commonest and smallest in summer, C. annandalei were largely absent in the monsoon and post-monsoon seasons, while Chrysaora spp. could be recorded throughout the year in a variety of size groups. There was a strong cohesion in pattern between years, suggesting that the monsoon impacts populations of both species, albeit in slightly different ways. We provide rare, field-based measurements of growth for both species that are in broad agreement with the data published for similar taxa elsewhere: our lengthweight data provide useful contributions to baseline information.

The unpredictability of scyphozoan jellyfish blooms

“…Scyphozoan jellyfish are also targeted species, and the impact of their fisheries on population dynamics must also be discussed. Indeed, jellyfish fisheries have become increasingly important worldwide, with more than 20 countries reporting their activity and average annual jellyfish landings exceeding 7.5×10 8 kg (Brotz, 2016;Brotz et al, 2017), but the biological parameterization of the species necessary to develop sustainable fishing programs has only been carried out for certain species and locations (Palomares and Pauly, 2008;Brotz, 2016;Fernańdez-Alıás et al, 2020;Loṕez-Martıńez et al, 2020;Leoni et al, 2021a;Behera et al, 2022). Consequently, the overfishing has been identified as the main cause of the collapse of the jellyfish fisheries of R. esculentum in China (Dong et al, 2014) and of Stomolophus meleagris Agassiz, 1860 in Mexico (Brotz et al, 2021).…”

“…Once a bloom of a species occurs, interest usually shifts to the socioeconomic impacts of the massive proliferation and how to mitigate them (Bosch-Belmar et al, 2020), and less attention is paid to the implications of its development for subsequent seasons. In fact, attention to future blooms seems to have gained interest only since the development of jellyfish fisheries threatened by interannual variability in medusae abundance (Brotz et al, 2017), and yet not many efforts have been made to calculate the biological parameters required to implement sustainable fishing programs (Palomares and Pauly, 2008;Brotz, 2016;Fernańdez-Alıás et al, 2020;Loṕez-Martıńez et al, 2020;Leoni et al, 2021a;Behera et al, 2022). Traditionally considered a trophic "dead end" (Hays et al, 2018), medusae are not typically included in ecosystem management models (Pauly et al, 2008), and larval stages are even less likely to be included in these models, despite their potential to influence adult abundance (Table 1).…”

Emergent fishery of the catostylid jellyfish Crambionella orsini along the southern coast of India

“…Thus jelly fishery in India can be seen as still in its emergent phase. Out of the 35 species of jellyfishes (29 scyphozoans and six cubozoans) occurring in Indian seas, four are actively fished along Kerala, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh coasts and exported overseas (Saravanan, 2018) with the Crambionella annandalei fishery expanding to a regular one along the Andhra Pradesh coast (Behera et al, 2018(Behera et al, , 2020a.…”