FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 84, NO. 3 



up to an intermediate size and age, at which time 

 the significantly different ratios favored males. 

 Fishelson (1975) stated that sex ratios should ap- 

 proximate la: 19 at some stage if all protogynous 

 females undergo sex succession. Given the alter- 

 nating ratios of sexual abundance with size and age, 

 and considering that no female older than age 7 and 

 few larger than 330 mm SL were found in our 

 samples, leads us to conclude that all C. striata have 

 the potential to undergo sex succession. 



Population Estimates 



The underlying assumptions of the Petersen 

 method for population estimates were met in this 

 study. We found tag-related mortality in only one 

 experiment and adjusted the number of fish marked 

 for it. We feel all tags were accounted for and tag 

 loss was minimal, because tags were firmly anchored 

 to the fish and were bright orange. Tagged fish were 

 not randomly distributed over the study site, but 

 they were released during vessel drifts governed by 

 wind and surface currents and may be effectively 

 random. We assumed minimal immigration and 

 emigration because our experiments covered a brief 

 time period. 



Powles and Barans (1980) estimated density of C. 

 striata in the sponge-coral habitat of the South 

 Atlantic Bight. The estimates of 51 fish/ha and 7.6 

 kg/ha derived from the data of Powles and Barans 

 (1980) were 37-66% and 23-44% of our mark-recap- 

 ture values. Powles and Barans (1980) indicated that 

 possible sources of error in their study were distance 

 determinations from loran-A, which are much less 

 precise than distances derived from loran-C read- 

 ings, and variable visibility. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



This work was funded by the National Marine 

 Fisheries Service under contract NA-84-WCC-06101 

 to the South Carolina Wildlife and Marine Resources 

 Department. We appreciate the Assistance of A. J. 

 Kemmerer and W. Nelson of NMFS. 



We thank Captain John Causby and First Mate 

 Julian Mikell of the RV Oregon for the exceptional 

 navigational and vessel handling skills enabling us 

 to sample open ocean patch reefs not much larger 

 than a few football fields with a 90-ft vessel. The 

 difficulties involved can be appreciated only by one 

 who has been there. It would not have been possi- 

 ble to process the numerous histological samples 

 without the help of D. Stubbs. We are grateful to 

 the many individuals who participated in the field 



effort, several of whom suffered punctures by fish 

 spines and lacerations by sea bass preopercles dur- 

 ing the tagging study. A. G. Gash provided assis- 

 tance with the computer analysis, K. Swanson drew 

 the figures and N. Beaumont and M. Lentz typed 

 the manuscript. Helpful critical reviews of the 

 manuscript were made by C. A. Barans, E. L. Wen- 

 ner, R. Warner, P. Hastings, G. Huntsman, P. 

 Eldridge, and two anonymous reviewers. 



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