<p> The white shrimp <i>Litopenaeus setiferus</i> is harvested throughout its range in the western Atlantic Ocean and is particularly important in supporting a commercial fishery in the northern Gulf of Mexico (nGoM) concentrated in Texas and Louisiana. Mortality rates of young (juvenile) white shrimp in estuarine nursery areas may have a large effect on the adult population. Understanding the temporal and spatial variation in mortality rates and other population parameters (i.e., density, growth rate, and secondary production) is important for the management of white shrimp in determining how estuaries function as nursery areas and can also be useful in identifying coastal habitats that best support white shrimp populations. My objective was to examine and describe the population dynamics, with a focus on mortality, of juvenile white shrimp populations in Sabine Lake, an estuary of the nGoM. I estimated density, growth, mortality, and secondary production in three areas along the estuarine salinity gradient. Most of these metrics were generally higher in areas of high salinity and total secondary production was relatively high in all three areas. Approximately half of the potential fish predators collected in my study area had preyed upon juvenile penaeid shrimps based on an examination of fish gut contents. Given their abundance within estuaries of the nGoM, these fish predators may have a large impact on populations of juvenile white shrimp. Mortality rates of juvenile white shrimp estimated with mark-recapture and length-frequency data were relatively similar to each other and within the range of the few values previously reported. Two commonly used age-based mortality estimators originally developed for fishes provided reasonably unbiased mortality rates for juvenile penaeid shrimps, although both estimators provided relatively high biased estimates at the lowest mortality rates considered. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10163350 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Creators | Mace, Marvin Mason, III |
| Publisher | University of Louisiana at Lafayette |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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