Table 1 1 The number of berried females examined for egg mass fullness and egg development 

 from May to October during 1984-85. 



Number with Number with Number with Number with 



Number of 

 Month Berried Females 



Complement Complement Complement 



Number with 



Full Developmental 



Complement Stage 



MAY 



JUN 

 JUL 

 AUG 



It Green with 

 optical disks 



MAY 



JUN 

 JUL 

 AUG 



It. Green with 

 optical disks 



Molting and Growth 



Ix^bster growth was determined from carapace length measurements for those lobsters that molted 

 between tagging and recapture. The number of molting lobsters observed in the weekly catch varied from 

 year to year and over the sampling period (Fig. 7). In general, molting peaked in June although in several 

 years a fall molting peak was also observed. Frequency of molting and size increase per molt are reported 

 to be affected by temperature, light, nutrition, social behavior, injury/regeneration, habitat, season of year 

 and reproductive development (Aiken and Waddy 1980). The fact that secondary molts were observed in 

 our study area is not unusual; two molting peaks were observed by Lund et al. (1973) for LIS and by 

 Russell et al. (1978) for Narragansett Bay. 



Several researchers have shown that growth increment per molt in crustaceans is best described by 

 linear regression (Wilder 1953; Kurata 1962; Mauchline 1976). Carapace lengths at recapture (post-molt 

 size) were regressed on carapace lengths at tagging (pre-molt size) for data collected from 1978 to 1985. 

 Regression plots, equations and growth parameters for all lobsters (n=733) and males (n = 296) and 

 females (n = 437) are presented in Figure 8. 



19 



