Abstract
De Buen’s goby, Buenia affinis , is a very small Mediterranean goby (38.8 mm TL) inhabiting sandy infralittoral bottoms and known only from a few published records. Some aspects of reproduction and growth of B. affinis were investigated from a population collected in the Kvarner area (north-eastern Adriatic Sea). Sampling was carried out by SCUBA diving between May 2003 and April 2004. The sex ratio did not differ significantly. The estimated length at sexual maturity was 26.1 and 27.4 mm for females and males, respectively. The spawning season extended from February to July. The absolute fecundity (F) ranged from 457 to 714 eggs per individual (mean ± SE, 556 ± 25). Based on the length frequency distribution analysis throughout the year and seasonal growth bands on sagittal otoliths, B. affinis was assumed to be an annual species.
Highlights
The Gobiidae, comprising 93 species, is numerically the dominant fish family in the northeastern Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Seas (Kovačić and Patzner, 2010)
Some aspects of reproduction and growth of B. affinis were investigated from a population collected in the Kvarner area
The aim of this study is to provide the first data on reproduction and growth of B. affinis, including sex ratio, length at sexual maturity, annual cycle of gonad development, spawning period, relationship of reproductive cycle and liver storage, fecundity, growth rate and recruitment
Summary
The Gobiidae, comprising 93 species, is numerically the dominant fish family in the northeastern Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Seas (Kovačić and Patzner, 2010). Data on growth and reproduction are currently available for only 1/3 and 1/2 of gobies, respectively (Kovačić, 2001). Gobies are generally small-sized fishes, and about 1/4 of the northeastern. Mediterranean and Black Sea species are very small, not reaching 5 cm TL (Kovačić and Patzner, 2010). The small size in teleosts provides advantages in efficiency of feeding on small prey and in colonization and exploitation of particular habitats (Miller, 1979, 1996). The very small gobies of the northeastern Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Seas are present in epibenthic, cryptobenthic and nektonic ecotopes (Miller, 1979), including both pelagic and hyperbenthic species.
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