Abstract

The crab fishery in the region of the Terminos Lagoon, it has been developed in a considerable way in the last to years and it is considered the second resource in single importance after the shrimp, generating employment sources and foreign currencies product of the export of the crab meat. In spite of the above mentioned it is considered that the studies of the biological and fishing aspects of the crab in the region are limited but necessary to order the fishery. The main objective of the present work was this way to carry out analysis of the planktonic abundance of the crab Callinectes rathbunae, with the purpose of contributing to the knowledge of some preliminary aspects of its reproductive time and the tecruitment sites in the Pom Lagoon, to the west of the Terminos Lagoon. They were carried out superficial samples of zooplancton in 6 stations distributed in the lagoon during five campaigns between April of 2001 and February of 2002 (April, July, September, December and February). Simultaneously were obtained the variables: temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen and pH by means of multi parametric Sonde Hidrolab Datasonde. The stations with smaller larval densities during the five campaigns were 5 and 6 located in the mouth of connection with the Atasta Lagoon, while the maximum densities of zoeae were in the month of July with 166.03 larvae/m3 and 82.06 larvae/m3 for stations 3 and 4 respectively, which are located to the end of the lagoon, this due to the currents which influence in the recruitment when transporting the larvae until that place. The parameters physical-chemistry associated to these high densities was: temperature 30 ± 1°C; pH 8.63; salinity between 0.7 and 1.1 % and oxygen dissolved between 4.17 and 7.4 mg/l.

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