Bycatch of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin inshore shrimp fishery and its effect on two sea catfish species: the gafftopsail catfish (Bagre marinus) and the hardhead catfish (Ariopsis felis)

<p>In Lake Pontchartrain Basin, commercial fishing in estuarine habitats impacts many non-target species collected as bycatch. I investigated the bycatch assemblages collected by commercial vessels and compared these to assemblages collected by typical fishery-independent methods. I compared assemblages using analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) and determined important species by weight and abundance using similarity percentages analyses (SIMPER). I also examined differences in size-class distributions by gear type using density kernel plots and Mann-Whitney U tests. The two gear types collected significantly different assemblages (ANOSIM R = 0.522, p = 0.001) and gear type explained more composition differences than other factors such as month, daytime, or location. Fishery-independent gear underestimated the importance of many species. Although fishery-independent data are invaluable for monitoring assemblage dynamics, fishery-independent gear collects different assemblages than commercial gear. Larger fishes of important species were caught less often in bycatch, but completely absent from fishery-independent gear.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Earth and Environmental Sciences

Year

2011

Author dc:creator

• Eustis, Scott P

Contributors dc:contributor

• O'Connell, Martin
• Georgiou, Ioannis
• Kulp, Mark

• bycatch
• gear type
• assemblage
• catfish
• diet
• Lake Pontchartrain
• Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
• Life Sciences
• Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
• Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1419

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarworks.uno.edu:td-2373