Morphometric relationships and size at sexual maturity of the deep-sea Caribbean lobster Metanephrops binghami (Decapoda: Nephropidae) in the Colombian Caribbean

Univ. Sci. 22(2): 145 - 160, 2017. doi: 10.11144/Javeriana.SC22-2.mras Bogotá original article Morphometric relationships and size at sexual maturity of the deep-sea Caribbean lobster Metanephrops binghami (Decapoda: Nephropidae) in the Colombian Caribbean José Cusba1, Jorge Paramo1, * Edited by Juan Carlos Salcedo-Reyes () 1. Universidad del Magdalena, Grupo de Investigación Ciencia y Tecnología Pesquera Tropical (CITEPT). Carrera 32 No. 22-08 Avenida del Ferrocarril, Santa Marta. * Received: 29-11-2016 Accepted: 20-05-2017 Published on line: 10-08-2017 Citation: Cusba J, Páramo J. Morphometric relationships and size at sexual maturity of the deep-sea Caribbean lobster Metanephrops binghami (Decapoda: Nephropidae) in the Colombian Caribbean, Universitas Scientiarum, 22(2): 145 - 160, 2017. doi: 10.11144/Javeriana.SC22-2.mras Funding: This work was financed by COLCIENCIAS (grant number 117-452-21288), Universidad del Magdalena, Universidad del Magdalena/Gobernación del Magdalena (Agreement No. 089) and the Instituto Colombiano de Desarrollo Rural (INCODER) - Subgerencia de Pesca y Acuicultura. Electronic supplementary material: N/A Abstract This paper describes the morphometric relationships and size at sexual maturity of deep-sea Caribbean lobster. Data were obtained in the Colombian Caribbean in four trawling surveys in November and December 2009 between 200 and 550 m depth. 709 individuals with sizes between 53.65 and 191.00 mm (TL) (mean 121.17 ± 27.13 mm) were measured. M. binghami had a positive allometric growth. Lobsters of the family Nephropidae have a worldwide distribution and economic importance. High levels of biomass of Metanephrops binghami have been reported in the Colombian Caribbean and this species could become a potential new resource for the Western Atlantic fishery. However, prior to the development of a new fishery, more biological research is needed to understand the life cycle of this species. Aspects such as growth, spawning, recruitment, mortality, nursery areas and associated biodiversity should be carefully studied. Keywords: Metanephrops binghami; morphometric relationships; Caribbean; Colombia; Deep-sea Caribbean lobster. Introduction Lobsters of the family Nephropidae are of great commercial importance in many fisheries around the world (Cobb & Wang 1985, Holthuis 1991), and can be found from shallow waters to 1,400 meters depth on sand and mud bottoms (Tavares 2002). Within this family is the genus Metanephrops distributed in the Indo-Pacific, Eastern Pacific and Western Atlantic (Holthuis 1991, Chan et al. 2009, Robey et al. 2013). Some species of this genus have been reported as being of great economic importance such as Metanephrops mozambicus (Macpherson 1990) caught by industrial fisheries in East Africa (Robey et al. 2013), Metanephrops japonicus (Tapparone-Canefri 1873) which presents a high value in local fisheries of Japan (Okamoto 2008) and Metanephrops binghami (Boone 1927) that has potential for exploitation in Venezuelan waters (Gómez et al. 2000, Gómez et al. 2005). Universitas Scientiarum, Journal of the Faculty of Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License 146 Morphometry of the deep-sea Caribbean lobster On the continental slopes of north-west Australia, three deep-sea crustaceans of the genus Metanephrops are exploited commercially: M. boschmai (Holthuis 1964), M. andamanicus (Wood-Mason 1891) and M. australiensis (Bruce 1966; Ward and Davis 1987; Wassenberg and Hill 1989). In addition, in New Zealand a deep-sea lobster fishery has been developed targeting scampi (M. challengeri Balss 1914; Smith 1999). The deep-sea Caribbean lobster (M. binghami) has a wide distribution from the Bahamas Islands to French Guiana, including the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, inhabiting depths ranging between 200 and 700 m (Holthuis 1991, Tavares 2002). Research on deep water in the Colombian Caribbean has reported the potential of M. binghami for a fishery with high commercial value, but at present there is no fishery for this species and there is no information about its biology, population dynamics and life history (growth, reproduction, etc.) (Paramo & Saint-Paul 2012). However, for the management of fisheries it is very important to know the size structure, body growth and size at sexual maturity of commercially important species (Hilborn & Walters 1992), which influence the structure and function of marine ecosystems (Haedrich & Barnes 1997, Shin et al. 2005). Therefore, the objective of this study is to provide biological information on size structure, size at sexual maturity and morphometric relationships of the deep-sea Caribbean lobster Metanephrops binghami in the Colombian Caribbean. Materials and methods Sampling was carried out in November and December 2009. Samples were taken by trawling (30 min haul duration) in depths ranging from 200 to 550 m, with at least two hauls per 100 m depth stratum, in the Colombian Caribbean. We used a commercial FURUNO FCV 1150 echo-sounder with a transducer at a frequency of 28 kHz to trawling locations, with a total of 87 stations sampled (Figure 1). Samples were collected by a commercial shrimp trawler using a trawl with a cod-end mesh of size 44.5 mm from knot to knot (Paramo & Saint-Paul 2012). In the laboratory, the Caribbean lobster (M. binghami) specimens were measured using twelve morphometric measurements of the body to the nearest 0.01 mm, total wet weight (W) to the nearest 0.01 g, and sex was determined. The morphometric variables recorded were: (1) total length (TL), (2) antennal spine width (ASW), (3) hepatic spine width (HSW), (4) cephalothorax length (CL), (5) diagonal cephalothorax length (DCL), (6) first abdominal segment length (FSL), (7) first abdominal segment width (FSW), (8) first abdominal segment height (FSH), (9) second abdominal segment length (SSL), (10) sixth abdominal segment height (SISH), (11) tail length (TaL) and (12) head length (HL) (Tzeng et al. 2001, Tzeng & Yeh 2002, Paramo & Saint-Paul 2010). Differences in sizes and weights between females and males were analyzed using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test (α = 0.05). The length frequency distributions for females and males allowed calculating the sex ratio by size class (each 10-mm length interval). A chi-square test was performed to establish significant differences between the total number of females and males and by size class with a reference of 50 % sex ratio. Additionally, a Generalized Additive Modelling (GAM; Hastie & Tibshirani 1990) was used to analyse the relation between the sex ratio and size class. Universitas Scientiarum Vol. 22 (2): 145-160 http://ciencias.javeriana.edu.co/investigacion/universitas-scientiarum 147 Cusba & Paramo 13.0 Latitude (°N) 12.0 11.0 10.0 9.0 8.0 77.0 76.0 75.0 74.0 73.0 72.0 71.0 Longitude (°W) Fig. 1. Study area. Dots indicate the location of (...truncated)