Abstract

Octopus is one of the most important fishing resources of the Yucatan Peninsula; three fleets target this resource (commercial, medium-size and artisanal fleets), furthermore, it is necessary to identify the factors associated with catches of this cephalopod given the participation of all fleets on the fishery. In this paper we use Generalized Linear Models (GLM) to obtain production functions, having as a case study the red octopus (Octopus maya) fishery of the Yucatan Peninsula. We collected data from the artisanal and medium-size fleet during the 2007 octopus fishing season. To estimate the production functions of each fleet we evaluated different probability functions and link functions. We used the Akaike information criterion and the analysis of residuals to select the model of best fit. The analysis showed that Gamma distribution and the link function Log fit best the model for the case of both fleets, so that the factors that explain catch variability were obtained. The factors that were significant in the case of artisanal fleet were: distance (km), crew size, and fishing time (h). In the case of medium-size fleet the factors were: depth (m), wind speed (km/h) and fishing time (h). We discuss regarding advantages and disadvantages of the methods employed. We also discuss about the relevance of the factors identified as those explaining catch variability and the management implications of the results from this study.

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