Abstract
The spotted catfish, Arius maculatus (Thunberg, 1792), is a euryhaline fish that is economically important in the Indo-West Pacific. Population dynamics studies and stock assessments of this species have focused on marine stocks, but not those from fresh water. In this study, the age and growth of A. maculatus were, therefore, investigated for the inland stock in Songkhla Lake, Thailand. A total of 213 individuals ranging between 35 and 238 mm TL were used. The length–weight relation indicated positive allometry of this population. Three hard parts (otolith, dorsal- and pectoral-fin spines) were used for aging. The marginal increment ratio confirmed that an annulus was deposited once a year in all three hard parts. All of the samples were aged between 0+ and 6+ years. Verification of age estimates from three readers showed that the otolith was the most suitable part for age estimation. Three growth models (von Bertalanffy, Gompertz, and logistic) were applied in the study. The von Bertalanffy model best described the growth of this fish in Songkhla Lake. The obtained asymptotic length was 290.87 mm TL and the relative growth rate parameter was 0.166 year–1. Our results will be applied as inputs for fish stock assessment models. The obtained growth parameters also can serve as a reference for A. maculatus stocks elsewhere.
Highlights
The family Ariidae accommodates more than 140 species of catfishes, found mainly in marine and brackish waters (Froese and Pauly 2021)
Some species are euryhaline and can live in a wide range of environments, from freshwater to marine, including the spotted catfish, Arius maculatus (Thunberg, 1792), which is widely distributed across the Indo-West Pacific Region (Rainboth 1996)
A size distribution of the 213 A. maculatus samples used in this study is presented in Fig. 2, with a range between 35 and 238 mm total length (TL)
Summary
The family Ariidae accommodates more than 140 species of catfishes, found mainly in marine and brackish waters (Froese and Pauly 2021). Phaeviset et al.: Age and growth of Arius maculatus of A. maculatus is estimated to be 3.4 ± 0.46, indicating carnivorous behavior This fish feeds mainly on benthic invertebrates (Angsupanich et al 2005), and plays an important role in the ecosystem; an imbalance in its abundance can trigger a trophic cascade (Froese and Pauly 2021). This fish is targeted for harvest in many countries, where the fisheries operations are mostly in either marine or brackish water environments (Arshad et al 2008; Chu et al 2012; Jumawan et al 2020; Kutsyn et al 2021). This sharp rise in harvest implies that appropriate fisheries management of this resource is urgently required to prevent a collapse of this spotted catfish stock
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