Relationships Between Fish and Otolith Dimensions for Serranus hepatus (Linnaeus, 1758) from the Southern Aegean Sea

Abstract

In the present study, the relationships between sagittal otoliths (otolith length (OL), height (OH) and weight (OW)), fish size (fish length (TL) and weight (W)) in brown comber (Serranus hepatus, Linnaeus, 1758) were analysed. Fish specimens (N=504, 41–133 mm in TL and 1.05–31.98 g) were captured by bottom trawl vessels from off the Güllük Bay (Southern Aegean Sea) between January and December 2013. Left otolith pairs were used for calculations since there was no statistical differences between left and right otoliths (P>0.05). Regression formulas were used as follows: TL= 16.94*OL+10.14, TL= 26.77*OH+24.88, TL= 375.7*OW0.315, W= 0.251*OL2.431, W= 2.009*OH1.917, W= 854.0*OW+1.552, OH= 0.600*OL–0.394, OW= 0.00025*OL2.555 and OW= 0.001*OH2.007. Calculated regressions were revealed a high coefficient of determinations ranging from 0.865 to 0.960. It is found that otolith sizes and weight are good indicators of the total length and weight of S. hepatus.