252 



Fishery Bulletin 9 1 (2), 1993 



conditions for reproduction exist at about the same 

 time each year. 



The batch fecundity estimate multiplied by the fre- 

 quency of spawning provides an estimate of annual 

 fecundity (Hunter & Macewicz 1985, Hunter et al. 

 1985). For example, annual production could be as high 

 as 32 million eggs for a 6.1kg female with an average 

 clutch of 1.6 million eggs over 20 spawns (assuming 

 spawning every 3d on average during February and 

 March). Although this estimate of annual fecundity is 

 high for wild fish, spawning patterns in captivity for a 

 closely-related sciaenid, red drum Sciaenops ocellatus, 

 corroborates this magnitude of egg production. Three 

 captive female red drum produced 6xl0 7 eggs over 

 76 d, or roughly 20 million eggs/female (Arnold et al. 

 1977). 



Although we found no significant differences in hy- 

 drated egg counts between ovarian lobes or among lo- 

 cations within a lobe, we observed the maximum num- 

 ber of hydrated oocytes in the mid-region of ovaries. 

 Hydrated eggs per unit of ovary weight were lowest 

 for the anterior region of the ovary, and may have 

 been due to decreased vascularization or the hydra- 

 tion rate (Hunter et al. 1985, Fitzhugh et al. 1988). In 

 future sampling, we recommend multiple samples be 

 taken for accurate batch-fecundity determinations due 

 to the large ovary size and potential for heterogeneity 

 of hydrated oocytes among locations within the ovary. 



Acknowledgments 



We thank the many fishermen, seafood dealers, and 

 tournament organizations for their efforts and coop- 

 eration in obtaining samples. Assistance in data col- 

 lection was provided by Robby Parker, Dave Nieland, 

 Dan Beckman, Louise Stanley, and David Stanley. This 

 work was supported by the Louisiana Board of Re- 

 gents' Rockefeller Fund Interest Earnings Grant Pro- 

 gram and by the Louisiana State University, Coastal 

 Fisheries Institute. 



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