FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 87, NO, 1 



CONSTANCY 



SIMILARITY 



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> 0.3 Moderate 



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SITE GROUPS 



Figure 3.— Inverse and normal classification hierarchies and nodal 

 diagram showing constancy and fidelity of site— species group 



May to August but are known to occur from Feb- 

 ruary to November in other portions of its range 

 (Dudley and Judy 1961). In the present study, 185 

 of the 187 ovigerous females collected were taken 

 in spring. 



Male P. gihhesii were slightly larger (x CW = 

 45.2 mm) than females (x CW = 43.2 mm) but 

 were less numerous. Analysis of sex ratios indicated 

 significantly more female crabs than males were col- 

 lected each season (Table 6). 



Squilla etnpusa 



This stomatopod is widely distributed in the west- 

 ern Atlantic, occurring from Maine to South Ameri- 

 ca as far south as Surinam (Manning 1969; Gore and 



Becker 1976). Camp (1973) found S. empiisa to be 

 most abundant at 18 m depths on the central west 

 Florida shelf. 



This species was the most abundant stomatopod 

 collected and ranked second among the total catch 

 of decapod and stomatopod species. It was frequent- 

 ly collected throughout the study area, occurring in 

 78% of the 803 trawl tows made. In terms of bio- 

 mass, S. em-pusa constituted 11% of the total catch, 

 being outranked only by the blue crab, Callinectes 

 sa'pidMS (Table 1). The stratified mean catch per tow 

 was highest in spring (40 individuals/tow) and sum- 

 mer (42 individuals/tow) (Table 5). The number of 

 individuals per tow differed between the areas with 

 more S. empusa collected off Florida during every 

 season (Fig. 4). 



164 



