Length-weight Relationships of 73 Commercial Fish Species from the Western Coast of the Arabian Gulf of Saudi Arabia PDF

Keywords

Length-weight relationship, fishery management, commercial fish, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Arabian Gulf.

Abstract

The length-weight relationship for 73 fish species inhabiting the territorial waters of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Arabian Gulf was investigated and determined using results from a three-year field study (March 2000 and March 2002). These species belonged to 28 families and 8 orders, of which 57 species are studied for the first time in this area. All the calculated length- weight equations (W=aL^b) had high correlation; the constant (b) ranged between 4.38 and 1.44. An isometric growth of weight against length was prominent in 29% of the studied species, and only 15% had allometric growth, while the majority of the studied fish species (56%) showed and inferometric relation between weight and length. These results suggest that environmental conditions in the Gulf are not favorable for the optimal growth in length and weight within the studied length range. Compared with results from previous studies, significant differences in the constants of the length-weight relationship were found for 50% of the species previously studied.