Effect of environmental variability on the individual growth of yellow abalone (Haliotis corrugata) and blue abalone (Haliotis fulgens) in the Mexican Pacific

Abstract

Individual growth parameters of blue abalone and yellow abalone were estimated through length–frequency analysis using biometric data from bank surveys conducted by the National Fisheries Institute from 1998 to 2018. The growth parameters calculated by the von Bertalanffy equation are as follows: Haliotis corrugata (K=0.362 yr-1, L∞=150.5 mm and t0= -0.10 mm) and Haliotis fulgens (K=0.305 yr-1, L∞=163.5 mm and t0= -0.64 mm). When evaluating growth performance, through the Phi-prime growth index (∅′), indices of ∅′=3.36 for H. corrugata and ∅′=3.38 for H. fulgens were obtained. Subsequently, for the two species, a pattern of interannual variation in growth performance ∅′ was identified and had a positive correlation with sea surface temperature and fluorescence in the Mexican North Pacific, explaining 38% and 54%, respectively, of the variation in growth. This functional relationship between environmental parameters and growth opens the opportunity for more efficient management of the resource by discriminating sources of variation not caused by fishing and foreseeing abalone population conditions under different restoration and exploitation plans.