Reproductive Biology of the Indian Mackerel, &lt;em&gt;Rastrelliger kanagurta&lt;/em&gt; (Cuvier 1817), from Salalah, Dhofar Coast, Oman

Saud Musallam Al Jufaili,Ibrahim Said Al-Anbouri

doi:10.19026/ajfst.18.6052

Abstract

The present study aims at determining the length-weight relationship, sex ratio, relative weight, gonadosomatic indices and length at 50% maturation for the Indian mackerel, Rastrelliger kanagurta (Cuvier, 1817). A total of 791 specimens were collected from Salalah in the Dhofar region during the years 2007 to 2009. For both sexes, a common length-weight relationship was derived from the analysis, that is $W=0.00001×L^{3.4}$. It was found that the Omani Indian mackerel spawned during August to November and the lengths at 50% maturation were 271 mm for the combined sexes, 267.5 mm for the females and 277.5 mm for the males. The relative condition weight was positively proportion to the gonadosomatic index. The mean sex ratio for the entire fish sample of 0.56±0.1 was significantly different from the anticipated theoretical sex ratio of 0.5 $(X^2 = 8.77; \;df = 1; \;p<0.05)$.

Highlights

Among the small pelagic fisheries that are found along the Salalah coast, the Indian mackerel (Rastrelliger kanagurta (Cuvier, 1817)) is regarded as one of the significant fisheries
The objective of the current study is to present some biological and reproductive information related to R. kanagurta from Salalah in the Dhofar region, south of Oman (Fig. 2)
694 Indian mackerels were used for sex ratios analysis, the female (n 386)-to-male (n 308) sex ratio was 0.56 for the entire fish sample

Summary

Introduction

Among the small pelagic fisheries that are found along the Salalah coast, the Indian mackerel (Rastrelliger kanagurta (Cuvier, 1817)) is regarded as one of the significant fisheries. In Salalah, as a result of the increase in landings, the revenue of this fishery showed an increase from 136,000 OR in 2017 to 366,000 OR (1 OR 2.6 USD) in 2018 (MAF, 2018). There are only few research publications on the Omani Indian Mackerel that are mostly published from the data collected from Muscat, Batinah and Sharqiyah regions (Jayabalan et al, 2014, 2016; Zaki et al, 2016a). There are so far no scientific publications on this subject from the Dhofar region

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion