Reproductive biology of the small-scaled terapon, Terapon puta (Cuvier, 1829), from Lake Timsah, Egypt

Abstract

The reproductive biology of the small-scaled terapon, Terapon puta (Cuvier, 1829), from Lake Timsah, Ismailia Governorate, Egypt, has been studied during the period from June 2011 to May 2014. The results revealed that the growth of the total body weight relative to the total body length is negative allometric (b = 2.4954). Moreover, the collected fishes were divided into three age groups from one to three years. The age composition of T. puta catch indicated that individuals belonging to age group two have predominated the fish population (90.53% of the total collected individuals). The overall sex ratio indicated that the females T. puta were dominant throughout all the seasons of the year. The average values of the gonadosomatic index of T. puta were small in winter (the pre-spawning season) for both sexes, while they gradually increased in spring and summer to reach highest values in summer. The values of GSI then decreased gradually to reach minimal values in autumn (the postspawning season) for both sexes. The aforementioned data indicates that T. puta has a long spawning season that starts in early spring and ends in late summer. Moreover, the study of the fecundity of T. puta revealed that the highest significant relationship was found between the logarithmic values of both mean total body weight, and mean observed absolute fecundity, with highest correlation coefficient (r 2 =0.999), consequently, the total body weight was the best indicator of the fecundity of T. puta. The recommendation of the present study is to prevent fishing of T. puta in Lake Timsah during the spawning season, which extends from April to August, or use nets with wider meshes in order to protect the spawning biomass of T. puta resources.

Study on the biology of the small scaled terapon Terapon puta (Cuvier, 1829) from Bardawil Lagoon, North Sinai, Egypt

“…In the present study, the sex ratio of males to females of T. puta 1:1.7 .These results agree with Rizkalla, et al (2016) in Lake Timsah, Egypt (1:1.2), Miu et al, (1990) from Tamshui River (1:1.8) and Kassem ( 2017) from Brdawil Lagoon (0:1.57). The predominance of females may be attributed to the male fertilizing efficiency as recorded by Salama (1996) or to the fact that females consume more energy for environmental adaptation than males for the reproduction ( Liang et al, 2005) or males may not commonly inhabit the depth zone, where the majority of fishing efforts for this species is concentrated ( Abaszadeh et al, 2013).…”

“…On the other hand, pointed out that the total body length of T. puta from Nallavadu Coast Ranges from 13.4-21.9 cm and the total body weight varies from 30-78 gm. Also, Rizkalla et al, (2016) stated that the total body length of T. puta, from Lake Timsah Egypt ranged from 5.6 to 15.2 cm and the total body weight varied from 5.08 to 41.65 gm. This variability may be due to the difference in the environmental conditions such as: habitat, food abundance and temperature, or the differences in mesh size of the fishing gears.…”

“…Although the broad distribution of this species along the indo-pacific waters, modest information on its biological character has been reported by Ben-Tuvia (1986) in Bardawil Lagoon, Egypt;Paxton et al (1989) in Australia studied the general biology of T. puta; Alwany and Hassan (2008) studied the relationship between otoliths size and the fish body size of T. puta from the Gulf of Suez, Egypt. Many scientists have studied the length-weight relationship of Terapon puta such as (Karna and Panda, 2012 in Chilika Lagoon, Odisha (India); Ahmed and Benzer, 2015 in Karachi Fish Harbour ;Nandikeswari , 2016 in Pondicherry coast, India ;Rizkalla et al, 2016;Sabrah et al, 2016 ;Abu El-Nasr and El-Drawany, 2017 in Lake Timsah Egypt and Kassem , 2017 in Bardawil Lagoon, Egypt, ( . The reproductive cycle of fishes is closely tied to the environmental changes particularly temperature, photoperiod and food supply ( Bagenal ,1978). The length at first maturity and gonado somatic index and sex ratio of Terapon puta was estimated by many authors) Nandikeswari 2016, Sabrah et al, 2016Rizkalla et al ., 2016 andKassem, 2017 (. The objective of the present research is to shed light on some biological features of the Terapon puta.…”

Morphological and histological studies on the ovaries of the small-scaled terapon, Terapon puta, from Lake Timsah, Ismailia governorate, Egypt

“…Although the species of Family: Terapontidae are widely distributed, their reproductive cycle is not previously investigated. Recently, there are few studies focusing on some reproductive aspects in a specific region such as Nandikeswari and Anandan (2013) in T. puta, Nandikeswari et al (2014) in T. jarbua, and Rizkalla et al (2016) in T. puta. So, the present study is planned to gain more information about the morphological and histological variations in the ovaries of T. puta from the Lake Timsah, Ismailia Governorate, Egypt during the different seasons of the year.…”