One of the most easily understood concepts in fishery management and conservation is to harvest individuals only after they have grown large enough to reproduce, thus allowing each generation to "seed" the next (Froese 2004). However the concept is difficult to put into practice because basic reproductive information such as size at maturity is lacking for~83% of exploited species worldwide (Froese and Binohlan 2000). This problem is especially intractable for coral-reef fishes; their sheer diversity, and the supposed cost associated with the reproductive analysis of each species are often cited as barriers to obtaining this important information (Roberts and Polunin 1993, Johannes 1998). Further, many Pacific island nations, where many of the world's coral reefs are located, have little or no capacity to conduct the reproductive research needed to support fishery management and conservation (Dalzell 1998). The reason for the latter problem may be as simple as a lack of basic infrastructure (e.g., electrical service needed to operate laboratory equipment) in many parts of these developing countries.To address these issues, and as part of a larger marineconservation effort (see Longenecker et al. 2013c), we initiated a research program to generate reproductive information for Pacific coral-reef fishes. We use recently developed methods for rapid, low-cost, on-site, histologybased reproductive analysis that requires minimal research infrastructure (Longenecker et al. 2013a(Longenecker et al. , 2013b. These methods use standard techniques (e.g., plastic embedding) that have been modified such that work can be conducted in remote field settings without electrical service. With these methods, reproductive information can be generated quickly and at low cost, thus eliminating for all specimens, but the length-weight relation differs between sexes. We estimate minimum size-at-maturity for males at 19.2 cm FL, and female L 50 at 20.4 cm FL. Overall sex ratio of mature individuals is not significantly different from 1 : 1; however sex-ratio does vary with length. Males dominate size classes > 21 cm. The species is a batch-spawning, protogynous hermaphrodite.
RAPID REPRODUCTIVE ANALYSIS AND LENGTH-WEIGHT RELATION FOR RED-BELLIED FUSILIER, CAESIO CUNING, AND LONGFIN EMPEROR, LETHRINUS ERYTHROPTERUS (ACTINOPTERYGII: PERCIFORMES: CAESIONIDAE AND LETHRINIDAE) FROM