^ 0.75 ^ 



9 0.70 



0.50 Ht 



All females are mature 



60 70 80 £ 



CARAPACE LENGTH (MM) 



Fig. 4. IVIorphometric relationship between the ratio abdominal width/carapace length and the carapace length for 

 data collected Prom 1981 to 1987 for female lobsters. (*) mean value for each 5 mm size for 3-unit data; (- — ) 

 y = a + bx + cx +dx for 2-unit data; ( ) upper and lower 95% C.I. 



in 1976. Over 90% of the berried females in 1986 

 and 1987 had 1/2 or more the full complement 

 of eggs (Table 7). This compares to 89% and 

 86% in 1984 and 1985. Only 3.6% in 1986 and 

 1.4% in 1987 of the berried females had less than 

 1/4 the normal complement of eggs. This com- 

 pares to 3.7% in 1984 and 7.7% in 1985. From 

 the above data it is apparent that the complement 

 of eggs carried by berried females in our area is 

 very good, and there has been no change following 

 3-unit operation. 



The numbers of berried females caught during 

 1986 (134) and 1987 (158) were within the range 

 of values repo'ted since 1978 (58-171), as was the 

 proportion caught at each station (Table 8). 

 Twotree catches continued to yield a higher pro- 

 portion of berried females (8.0-9.6%) than either 

 Jordan Cove (3.0-3.2%) or Intake (2.3-1.9%). 



The mean size of berried females collected during 



1986 was 78.0 mm, which was within the range 

 of pre-operational values (77.0-81.2 mm). The 



1987 mean size of 76.5 mm was the smallest value 

 reported for berried females and was due to the 

 fact that 90% of the berried females collected in 

 1987 were of sublegal size, whereas only 75% of 

 the berried females caught in 1986 were sublegal. 

 The proportion of sublegal-size berried females 

 has, in general, been increasing since 1981 and 

 may be related to the high exploitation rate of 

 lobsters in LIS. The number of legal-size females 

 that contribute to reproduction is limited by the 

 high level of fishing pressure which removes most 

 females shortly after reaching legal size. The fact 

 that females become sexually mature and bear 

 eggs at sizes well below the legal size is important 

 because these individuals are able to spawn before 

 growing to marketable size and thereby sustain 



Lobster Population Dynamics 



131 



