Abstract
The octopus fishery on the Campeche Bank (Yucatán, Mexico) is considered the third largest in the world. In Yucatán, two fleets target this resource: an artisanal fleet and a semi-industrial fleet. The artisanal fleet only catches Octopus maya, while the semi-industrial fleet catches two species, O. Maya and O. “vulgaris” Type II, because it operates at deeper waters ( > 30 m). Since there is no information on the abundance of O. “vulgaris” Type II, management is based only on O. Maya. In order to generate information about the abundance of this species, four fishing research cruises were carried out in the northeastern area of the continental shelf off the Yucatán Peninsula. Four methods (a stratified random method, a swept area, geostatistics and a weighted swept area) were applied and compared to determine the instantaneous abundance and biomass of both species in the study area. The lowest potential biomass was calculated with the geostatistical method, with values between 18.5% and 36.7% lower than the other three methods. O. “vulgaris” Type II showed the lowest biomass (37.8±3.36 t) during May and July and the highest (189.56±11.6 t) in December. Our findings revealed that the total abundance of both species was similar in the study area, with a geographic overlap whose amplitude changed throughout the year according to the geographic position: O. Maya dominated at approximately 88°W, while O. “vulgaris” Type II dominated towards the southeast at 87°W.
Highlights
The family Octopodidae contains more than 200 valid species
The analysis explores the area of overlap between O. “vulgaris” Type II and O. maya
The study area is located in the northeastern zone of the Yucatán Peninsula, on the continental shelf known as Campeche Bank, between 30 and 60 m depth (Fig. 2)
Summary
The family Octopodidae contains more than 200 valid species. global octopus fisheries are based on only around 30 species, which are harvested in a range of fisheries from subsistence catches through to valuable, large-scale commercial fisheries (Norman et al 2014). Due to the new findings in octopus taxonomy (Norman et al 2014, Amor et al 2017, Van Nieuwenhove et al 2019), all landings reported under that name should be reviewed (e.g. Solís-Ramírez 1994, Norman et al 2014, Emery et al 2016). This confusion occurs in Mexico, one of the world’s main producers of octopus, where two species are reported to be caught, O. maya and O. Areas of higher abundance of O. maya were described along the coast, decreasing towards deeper waters (30 m deep at approx. 88°W) and increasing towards the west of Campeche Bank (Solís-Ramírez and Chávez 1986, Gamboa-Álvarez et al 2015, Avendaño et al 2019)
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