Length‐weight relationships of 41 selected demersal fishes from the Campeche Bank in the Gulf of México

Abstract

Most of the demersal fish species from the continental shelf of the Campeche Bank (CB) have been subjected to by-catch problems (Chagaris et al., 2019;Mexicano-Cíntora et al., 2009). One such way in estimating the effect of fishing activities and its impact on the abundance of different species are length-weight relationships (LWR) (Famoofo & Abdul, 2020), a relationship that provides an indication of the range of individuals affected in the ecosystem (Bineesh et al., 2018). Shrimp trawlers, however, operate with trawl nets having a specific mesh opening, resulting in many discarded fish, simply because they are of no fisheries interest, yet they serve in important functions of the ecosystem (Aguilar-Medrano &Vega-Cendejas, 2019). Likewise, this type of analysis can be used to calculate the biomass of stocks, ontogenetic changes, and fish growth rates (Sandoval-Huerta et al., 2015). Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the LWR of 41 demersal fish species collected during oceanographic study surveys using shrimp trawl nets and lobster traps in the Campeche Bank, from the southeastern Gulf of Mexico. | MATERIAL AND ME THODSSampling occurred during three oceanographic study surveys in the CB, including the Yucatan Peninsula, at depths between 16 and 200 m. For the first survey, 18 sampling sites were