Reproduction of Deepwater Redfish Sebastes mentella on the Flemish Cap Bank by

• Main Author: A. Vaskov
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Sebastes mentella
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.489.8760; http://archive.nafo.int/open/sc/2005/scr05-004.pdf

Based on the data from research in 1983-2002, the results from the study of deepwater redfish sexual maturation, of the annual cycle of gonad development, the sex ratio and reproduction of the deep-water redfish Sebastes mentella Travin 1951 occurring on the Flemish Cap Bank (Div. 3M) are presented. It was established that males insignificantly prevailed over females in catches. The total sex ratio was close to 1. In the period of research all over the Flemish Cap Bank most of fish were immature. The greatest portion of mature redfish was registered in 1983 and amounted to 82.0%. The results of redfish sexual maturation rate study on Flemish Cap indicated that males with the length of 19 cm and females as long as 20 cm aged 5 were first occurring as mature individuals. Mass maturation of fish takes place under the length of 28-32 cm, when they are 9-12 years old. A complete maturation of redfish comes at age 18 and under the length of 39 cm. It is shown on the basis of analysis that the peak of larva extrusion is observed in March-April. The extrusion takes place on the Flemish Cap Bank slopes, at 300-750 m depths, with water temperature of 4-5ºC. The mass copulation comes about in September-November, when the bulk of mature males are at maturity stages V and VI.