Species diversity and some aspects of reproductive biology and life history of groupers (Pisces: Serranidae: Epinephelinae) off the central eastern coast of India

Abstract

Due to increased fishing activity, catches of larger species and individuals decrease. Behaviour, reproductive biology and life history data are fundamental to determine vulnerability to fishing. Groupers (Serranidae: Epinephelinae) are valuable targets for fisheries in many parts of the world but are highly susceptible to heavy and unregulated fishing. For many regions, biological information on groupers necessary for management purposes is still scarce. The North Andhra region, central east coast of India, has been the centre for a variety of fishing activities for a long time. Many species of groupers are landed by a variety of gears at fishing harbours and nearby fishing villages of this region. The present paper incorporates data on species diversity and length groups represented in the catches, results of length-weight relationship studies, length at first maturity, and fecundity of grouper species belonging to two genera, Cephalopholis and Epinephelus, that are represented in the commercial catches of this region. The consideration of length at first maturity and fecundity estimations is a very important prerequisite to prevent exploitation and detrimental effects for these fisheries resources.

New Record of Marine Parasitic Isopods (Family, Corallinidae) from South Andaman, Andaman Islands, India

“…Groupers are being subjected to increasing global fishing pressure for its food, medical purposes, and ornamental display. [14,15,16,17].…”

Population dynamics of a poorly known serranid, the duskytail grouper Epinephelus bleekeri in the Arabian Sea

“…The duskytail grouper Epinephelus bleekeri (Vaillant 1878) is a medium-sized species (based on maximum recorded mass and length at first maturity) (Kandula et al, 2015) occurring in the shallow waters of the Indo-West Pacific ocean from the Middle East to Taiwan and the northern coast of Australia. It is a relatively small yet important fishery in the range countries (Heemstra & Randall, 1993;Kandula et al, 2015;Russell et al, 2008), but due to declining populations because of exploitation for both capture fisheries and capture-based aquaculture, E. bleekeri has been assessed as Near Threatened (Russell et al, 2008). In India, E. bleekeri is exploited along the western and eastern coasts using trawls and traditional fishing gears (Kandula et al, 2015;Mathew, 2003;Vargese et al, 2017), but no information is available on the magnitude of catches, status and dynamics of populations or other fishery-induced wffect.…”

“…It is a relatively small yet important fishery in the range countries (Heemstra & Randall, 1993;Kandula et al, 2015;Russell et al, 2008), but due to declining populations because of exploitation for both capture fisheries and capture-based aquaculture, E. bleekeri has been assessed as Near Threatened (Russell et al, 2008). In India, E. bleekeri is exploited along the western and eastern coasts using trawls and traditional fishing gears (Kandula et al, 2015;Mathew, 2003;Vargese et al, 2017), but no information is available on the magnitude of catches, status and dynamics of populations or other fishery-induced wffect. This data deficiency on the demography and fishery status of E. bleekeri in India, where a major fishery exists and throughout its range, poses a significant challenge to their effective management and hampers updated species assessments for the IUCN Red List.…”

“…Epinephelus bleekeri is a poorly known serranid, with little scientific information on its biology, demography and threats. The (Figure 1(a)) showed significant variation in LMR (ANCOVA, F 7, 987 = 8.31, The fishery off the SW coast of India exploits larger individuals of E. bleekeri (150-870 mm L S ) compared with the north-east coast of India (280-370 mm L T ), Persian Gulf and Hong Kong (Froese & Pauly, 2017;Kandula et al, 2015). Here, the maximum L S of 870 mm recorded in this study extends the previously estimated maximum length for this species by c. 110 mm.…”

“…The current exploitation rate (E) of E. bleekeri is slightly higher than the predicted E max (Table 1) suggesting that populations are being overfished. Kandula et al (2015) estimated the length at first maturity for E. bleekeri as 360 mm total length. Since the mean length at first capture observed in our study (186.1 mm L S was much lower than the estimated length at first maturity, it can be inferred that there is a significant exploitation pressure on immature specimens as well.…”