MANOOCH and BARANS: DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE OF TOMTATE 



Table 2.— f-test and chi-square results of com- 

 parisons between numbers of tomtates in 

 catches over live-bottom and sandy-bottom 

 habitats. 



Table 4.— Mean catch/tow (f/J values for trawl-caught tom- 

 tates on untransformed and transformed [In (kg + 1)] data by 

 depth and habitat zone for summer 1974. Bliss' (1967) estima- 

 tion of the mean was applied to the transformed values. 



*" = significant at 0.01 level; n.s. = nonsignificant at 

 0.05 level. 



Table 3.— Catches of tomtates associated with collec- 

 tions within the "live bottom"-sponge/coral habitats. 



'Sampling season prolonged into spring. 

 2 Unusually cold winter, data omitted from average. 



Table 5.— Mean catch/tow (</,) values for trawl-caught tom- 

 tates on untransformed and transformed [In (kg + 1)] data by 

 depth and habitat zone for winter 1976. Bliss' (1967) estima- 

 tion of the mean was applied to the transformed values. 



Table 6.— Minimum standing crop estimates of tomtates in the South 

 Atlantic Bight during summer 1974 and winter 1976. All values should be 

 expanded by 10 2 ; units are in metric tons. LCLandUCL = lower and upper 

 90% confidence limits, respectively. 



Tomtates were collected at depths ranging 

 from 13 to 91 m. The greatest relative abundance 

 of both juveniles and adults in the South Atlantic 

 Bight was consistently within the three shallow- 

 est (<55 m) depth zones (Fig. 5). The depth dis- 

 tributions of juveniles and adults indicated a 

 slight shift offshore during winter but did not in- 

 dicate major seasonal movements offish within 

 the South Atlantic Bight region. During winters 

 (1975-77), tomtates were not collected in the 

 nearshore (9-18 m) zone. In summer 1976, only 

 adults were caught in the deep 56-110 m depth 



zone. During fall 1973 and winter 1977, only 

 juveniles were collected in the 56-110 m depth 

 zone, while in winter 1976, juveniles were much 

 more abundant than adults in this depth zone. 

 Tomtates were collected at bottom tempera- 

 tures from 10.3° to 28.1°C, but were seldom 

 caught at temperatures <13°C. Differences in 

 thermal distributions of juvenile (<148 mm TL) 

 and adult tomtates in the South Atlantic Bight 

 indicated separate thermal preferences. During 

 fall (1973) and winter (1976), the proportion of 

 juveniles to adults in the total catch increased at 



