MANOOCH and BARANS: DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE OF TOMTATE 



(Powles and Barans 1980). This method would 

 allow more accurate quantification of relative 

 abundance differences between habitats and be- 

 tween day and night sampling. Then, a biomass 

 factor could be developed to proportion fish 

 availability to the trawl during daytime collec- 

 tions in sponge-coral habitats and during night 

 in sand bottom habitats. Also, the vulnerability 

 of tomtate, or any groundfish in the South Atlan- 

 tic Bight, to trawl gear is unknown. Several 

 experiments with a headrope mounted TV sys- 

 tem would do much to fill this data gap. Biomass 

 estimates from rocky habitats may have to be 

 extrapolated from nearshore diver counts or off- 

 shore TV counts, but many problems remain in 

 the interpretation of these data. In general, a 

 composite estimate of tomtate biomass or stand- 

 ing stock in the South Atlantic Bight should 

 include difficult to obtain fish behavior informa- 

 tion. 



Tomtate are relatively shallow water (<50 m) 

 groundfish with a more pronounced tendency for 

 annual depth migrations in populations south of 

 the South Atlantic Bight. Tomtates in the Cam- 

 peche Bank area were most abundant in waters 

 <30 m during all seasons (Sauskan and Olaechea 

 1974), while tomtates occurred only at depths of 

 <10 m in the Bahamas (Bohlke and Chaplin 

 1968). Although tomtates remain inshore during 

 winter in Florida (Courtenay 1961), they are not 

 caught by inshore shrimp trawlers off South 

 Carolina (Keiser 1976) and appear to avoid shal- 

 low waters (<20 m) north of Florida during win- 

 ter. There is the possibility that during ex- 

 tremely cold winters, slight migrations (shifts in 

 distribution) southward occur. 



In contrast to the results of this study, tomtates 

 of the Campeche Bank move onshore during win- 



ter and fall and offshore in spring and summer 

 and are recruited to the fishery in shallow 

 waters, a great distance from the deeper area 

 where spawning takes place (Sauskan and Olae- 

 chea 1974). The difference in location of spawn- 

 ing and recruitment and lack of large adult fish 

 over reefs in Florida (Stone et al. 1979) and in 

 commercial trawl catches (Sokolova 1969) sug- 

 gests separation of juvenile and adult popula- 

 tions, especially south of Florida. 



Age and Growth 



The fact that scales may be used to accurately 

 determine the age of a warmwater marine fish 

 species is not particularly surprising. Scales 

 have been used to age other reef fishes that occur 

 with tomtates in the South Atlantic Bight. Ma- 

 nooch (1976) found annuli on scales from white 

 grunt collected off the Carolinas; Manooch and 

 Huntsman (1977) aged red porgy, Pagrus pag- 

 rus, using both scales and otoliths; and Grimes 

 (1978) determined the age of vermilion snapper, 

 Rhomboplites aurorubens, by reading scales. 



The theoretical parameters derived in this 

 study are compared with those for tomtates from 

 the Campeche Banks, and with cooccurring spe- 

 cies in the South Atlantic Bight in Table 11. The 

 Campeche Banks fish did not live as long — 5 or 7 

 yr compared with 9 in the South Atlantic 

 Bight — and had a slightly smaller maximum 

 size (L x ), 295 mm compared with 310 mm. Con- 

 sequently, the growth coefficient, although very 

 similar, is slightly higher— 0.235 compared with 

 0.200. With the exception of black sea bass, Cen- 

 tra pristis striata, sympatric species previously 

 studied in the South Atlantic Bight were longer 

 lived and slower growing (Table 11). 



Table 11.— Growth parameters for six species of demersal fish. 



'Linda Mercer, Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, Gloucester Point, Va 



15 



