Premium
An Analysis of the Variability of Fish Populations Taken by Otter Trawl in Biscayne Bay, Florida
Author(s) -
Roessler Martin
Publication year - 1965
Publication title -
transactions of the american fisheries society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.696
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1548-8659
pISSN - 0002-8487
DOI - 10.1577/1548-8659(1965)94[311:aaotvo]2.0.co;2
Subject(s) - bay , otter , fish <actinopterygii> , biology , negative binomial distribution , fishery , poisson distribution , ecology , geography , statistics , mathematics , archaeology
Three bottom habitats in Biscayne Bay were sampled by 120 trawl samples taken during both day and night from April to August 1963. Daylight samples contained 1,391 fishes representing 41 species. Night samples contained 1,440 fishes and 49 species. The number of species per sample followed a Poisson distribution, the number of individuals per sample followed a negative binomial distribution, and the number of individuals per species followed Fisherˈs logarithmic series. The following generalizations apply to both number of species and number of individuals. More fishes were taken in the Thalassia area than in the Thalassia‐sand area, which in turn had more than the mud‐sand area. More were taken at night than during the day. Tidal direction had no significant effect. Analysis of data on the sample variance for paired 2‐minute samples showed that seven to eight replicates are needed to detect a difference of five species and 10 samples are needed to detect a 10% change in the number of individuals with 95% confidence.