680 
Abstract .“The herbivorous blue- 
banded surgeonfish, Acanthurus line- 
atus, was a major species harvested on 
coral reefs in American Samoa, ac- 
counting for 39% by weight of artisanal 
catches in 1994. Spawning occurred 
year-round but peaked during the aus- 
tral spring and summer (October-Feb- 
ruary). A dense pulse of recruits (0.4— 
0.6 recruits/m 2 ) settled onto the outer 
reef flat in March-April. Apparent sur- 
vival was low during the first year but 
increased thereafter (80%/year). The 
fish were strongly site-attached on a 
daily basis, but an estimated 60% of the 
adults switched territories at least once 
during a 3-year period, thereby negat- 
ing attempts to estimate mortality 
through attrition rates of marked indi- 
viduals. Estimates of fish condition 
changed through the year, generally 
paralleling seasonal changes in a suite 
of environmental factors. The fish grew 
rapidly, attaining 70-80% of their to- 
tal growth during their first year, fol- 
lowed by slow growth and long life (up 
to 18 years), characteristics that con- 
founded standard growth analyses by 
producing age-specific growth para- 
meters. Growth was best described by 
a two-phase von Bertalanffy growth 
curve for ages 0-3 (if=l.l) and ages 4— 
18 (if=0. 12, Lj= 22. 1 cm), with the sepa- 
ration based on the age at which 50% 
of the population reached maturity. In- 
dicators of fishing pressure over a 9- 
year period were equivocal but did not 
point to significant overfishing. 
Manuscript accepted 4 April 1997. 
Fishery Bulletin 95:680-693 (1997). 
Population biology and harvest 
of the coral reef surgeonfish 
Acanthurus lineatus 
in American Samoa 
Peter C. Craig 
Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources 
PO Box 3730, Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799 
Present address: PO Box 532 
Klamath, California 95548 
E-mail address: Peter Craig <ncol0080@mail.telis.org> 
J. Howard Choat 
Lynda M. Axe 
Department of Marine Biology 
James Cook University, Townsville 
Queensland, 4811, Australia 
Suesan Saucerman 
Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources 
PO Box 3730, Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799 
Coral reef fishes are harvested for 
food throughout the South Pacific 
islands (Wright, 1993; Balzell et 
al. 1 ). In American Samoa, well over 
100 species are caught in artisanal 
and subsistence fisheries, but bio- 
logical information about these spe- 
cies and their responses to exploi- 
tation is sparse. Moreover, these 
fish are often treated as taxonomic 
groupings rather than as individual 
species, and the information that is 
available often pertains to geo- 
graphic areas distant from and dis- 
similar to isolated oceanic islands 
such as American Samoa. 
The purposes of this study were 
to examine life history characteris- 
tics and harvest of one of the most 
abundant species caught in Samoa, 
the bluebanded surgeonfish, Acan- 
thurus lineatus. This species is one 
component of a multispecies subsis- 
tence fishery that has declined in 
total catch in recent years for un- 
clear reasons (Craig et al., 1993; 
Ponwith 2 ; Saucerman 3 ). Thus, we 
also examined whether overfishing 
accounted for declines in catches. 
The herbivorous A. lineatus is 
broadly distributed throughout the 
Indo-Pacific and Indian Ocean re- 
gions and has been the subject of 
several studies on behavioral ecol- 
ogy (Robertson et al., 1979; Robert- 
son and Polunin, 1981; Robertson, 
1983 and 1985; Choat and Bellwood, 
1985; Polunin and Klumpp, 1989; 
Choat, 1991; Craig, 1996). On the 
Great Barrier Reef of Australia, this 
species is long-lived; some fish live 
1 Dalzell, P., T. Adams, and N. Polunin. 
1995. Coastal fisheries of the South Pa- 
cific. Workshop on management of South 
Pacific Inshore Fisheries, New Caledonia, 
26 June-7 July 1995. Joint Forum Fish- 
eries Agency — South Pacific Commission, 
Biol. Paper 30, 151 p. 
2 Ponwith, B. 1991. The shoreline fishery 
of American Samoa: a 12-year com- 
parison. Dep. Mar. and Wildl. Res., 
American Samoa, Biol. Rep. Ser. 23, 51 p. 
3 Saucerman, S. 1995. The inshore fish- 
ery of American Samoa, 1991 to 1994. 
Dep. Mar. and Wildl. Res., American Sa- 
moa, Biol. Rep. Ser. 77, 45 p. 
