Abstract

Crown conch Melongena corona bispinosa is a marine gastropod native from Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, distributed along coastal lagoons and intertidal areas. It is captured by fishermen’s wife and children mainly as a complementary fishery activity. As a part of a repopulation program, 3,000 chivitas were released in Chabihau swamp on August 2000. There were no records of previous presence of chivitas in this area. This wetland, with a coverage surface of 3,000 Ha, is divided in East and West by a rural road. In order to obtain population data, the swamp was randomly sampled each three months during August 2000 - September 2002. The area was poorly colonized during this period, indicated by only two areas with organisms collected in the East part (n range = 125 - 251 organisms, size range = 34.3 - 43.6 mm), and total absence of organisms in the West part. In September 2002, the Hurricane “Isidoro” passed troughtout the Yucatan Peninsula, developing a level of 4 in the Saffir-Simpson scale, only 50 km away from Chabihau swamp. Seven months after, it was sampled chivitas in the West part, with n range = 73 - 308 organism and size range = 29.1 - 51.1 mm, indicating both a population recruitment, and populational growth in size. It is shown that the von Bertalanffy parameters obtained before and after the hurricane during 4.5 years of sampling, and an estimate of biomass (27 tons total weight). Today, the inhabitants around the swamp capture chivitas for domestic consump-tion at a unknown explotation level. Environmental and biological factors that could had produced such colonization are discussed.