Abstract

RUIZ-LUNA, A; MERAZ-SANCHEZ, R  and  MADRID-VERA, J. Abundance distribution patterns of commercial shrimp off northwestern Mexico modeled with geographic information systems. Cienc. mar [online]. 2010, vol.36, n.2, pp.107-120. ISSN 0185-3880.

Abundance patterns for three species of penaeid shrimp off northwestern Mexico are explained based on sampling-catch data obtained by the National Fisheries Institute during closed fishing seasons (1995-2006). The bathymetry and fishing area (>14,000 km²) were determined from a depth dataset of >45,000 points. The catch data were obtained from a sampling network of 62 sites, with an average of 76 trawls per fishing season; the brown shrimp (Farfantepenaeus californiensis) was the most abundant species. The relative abundance models for the three species, produced by two geostatistical methods (inverse distance weighting (IDW) and Kriging), identified mid-northern Sinaloa as the most important area regarding the distribution of the resource, with each species displaying different distribution patterns. The spatial model allowed the categorization of data into three levels of relative abundance, taking the values between quartiles 1 and 3 as the medium abundance and the values below quartile 1 and above quartile 3 as the extremes (low and high). The two geostatistical techniques (IDW and Kriging) produced very similar abundance distribution maps, with values >0.7 of the Kappa index of agreement, particularly for areas of high abundance. These results could be useful to point out those areas that can be used to regulate fishing effort and reduce fishing mortality, supporting the sustainable development of the fishery.

Keywords : abundance; distribution; geospatial models; geographical information system; shrimp fishery.

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