480 
Fishery Bulletin 99(3) 
Florida has revealed marked variations; dorsal surfaces of 
the carapace of some specimens were predominantly olive 
green, those in other specimens were largely rust brown or 
rust patterned on green, and in yet others a rust pattern 
on a background of almost totally blue. 
As a result of our molecular analyses, especially in the 
absence of consistent characters to distinguish C. maracai- 
boensis on the basis of color or structural characteristics, 
we must conclude that Lake Maracaibo and adjacent Ven- 
ezuelan waters are inhabited by populations assignable to 
C. sapidus and by only one other species of the genus, C. 
bocourti. It appears that these are in turn the target spe- 
cies of a largely unregulated crab fishery which represented 
more than U.S. $6 million in exports to the United States in 
1992 (Oesterling and Petrocci, 1995), even though it has de- 
clined since 1989 in probable response to overharvesting. As 
maximum sustainable yield has likely been achieved, these 
fisheries, which have been proposed for Miller’s phase II 
management (resource-mapping, gear related regulations), 
should in the near future proceed to phase III (basic bio- 
logical studies, long-term management) (Miller, 1999). This 
phase can be undertaken only with a clear understanding 
of the genetic entities upon which the fishery is based. 
Acknowledgments 
We thank Fernando Mantelatto for making available Bra- 
zilian specimens of Callinectes, Waldo Querales and Jesus 
Arteaga for assistance in field work, and Arnaldo Ferrer 
and associates at PROFAUNA (MARNR), Cuare, for pro- 
viding accommodations at the station. We are indebted 
to Joseph E. Neigel for sharing his laboratory facilities 
and to Gilberto Rodriguez and Hector Suarez for providing 
advice, specimens, and convenient access to IVIC’s crusta- 
cean collection. This study was supported in part by the 
U.S. Department of Energy (grant DE-FG02-97ER12220). 
Literature cited 
Arnold, W. S. 
1984. The effects of prey size, predator size, and sediment 
composition on the rate of predation of the blue crab, Cal- 
linectes sapidus Rathbun, on the hard clam, Mercenaria 
mercenaria (Linne). J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 80:207-219. 
Buchanan, B. A., and A. W. Stoner. 
1988. Distributional patterns of blue crabs ( Callinectes sp.) 
in a tropical estuarine lagoon. Estuaries 11:231-239. 
Cabot, E.L. and A.T. Beckenbach. 
1989. Simultaneous editing of multiple nucleic acid and 
protein sequences with ESEE. Comput. Appl. Biosci. 
5:233-234. 
Carmona-Suarez, C. A., and J. E. Conde. 
1996. Littoral brachyuran crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda) from 
Falcon, Venezuela, with biogeographical and ecological 
remarks. Rev. Brasil. Biol. 56:725-747. 
Conde, J. E., and G. Rodriguez. 
1999. Integrated coastal zone management in Venezuela: 
the Maracaibo system. In Perspectives on integrated 
coastal zone management: principles and practice (W. Salo- 
mons, K. Turner, L. D. Lacerda, and R. Ramachandram, 
eds.), p. 297-312. Environmental Science Series. Springer- 
Verlag, Berlin, xviii+386 p. 
Ferrer-Montano, O. J. 
1997. Effectiveness of two pots and other factors for har- 
vesting hard blue crabs Callinectes sapidus in Lake Mara- 
caibo, Venezuela. Ciencia 5:111-118. 
Geller, J. G., E. D. Walton, E. D. Grosholz, and G. M. Ruiz. 
1997. Cryptic invasions of the crab Carcinus detected by 
molecular phylogeography. Mol. Ecol. 6:901-906. 
Kocher, T. D., W. K. Thomas, A. Meyer, S. V. Edwards, S. Paabo, 
F. X. Villablanca, and A. C. Wilson. 
1989. Dynamics of mitochondrial DNA evolution in ani- 
mals: Amplification and sequencing with conserved prim- 
ers. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 86:6196-6200. 
Kumar, S., K. Tamura, and M. Nei. 
1993. MEGA: Molecular evolutionary genetics analysis, ver- 
sion 1.01. The Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, 
PA. 
Lin, J. 
1991. Predator-prey interactions between blue crabs and 
ribbed mussels living in clumps. Estuarine Coast. Shelf 
Sci. 32:61-69. 
Miller, R. J. 
1999. Courage and the management of developing fisheries. 
Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 56:897-905. 
Norse, E. A. 
1977. Aspects of the zoogeographic distribution of Callinectes 
(Brachyura: Portunidae). Bull. Mar Sci. 27:440-447. 
Norse, E. A., and V. Fox-Norse. 
1979. Geographical ecology and evolutionary relationships 
in Callinectes spp. (Brachyura: Portunidae). Proceedings 
of the Blue Crab Colloquium, Gulf States Marine Fisheries 
Commission 7(1982):l-9. 
Oesterling, M. J., and C. Petrocci. 
1995. The crab industry in Venezuela, Ecuador and Mexico. 
Virginia Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program, Gloucester 
Point, VA, and Maryland Sea Grant Extension Program, 
College Park, MD. 
Orth, R. J., and J. van Montfrans. 
1987. Utilization of a seagrass meadow and tidal marsh 
creek by blue crabs Callinectes sapidus. 2. Seasonal and 
annual variations in abundance with emphasis on post-set- 
tlement juveniles. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 41:283-294. 
Rodriguez, G. 
1980. Crustaceos decapodos de Venezuela. Instituto Vene- 
zolano de Investigaciones Cientificas, Caracas, 494 p. 
Rzhetsky, A., and M. Nei. 
1992. A simple method for estimating and testing mini- 
mum-evolution trees. Mol. Biol. Evol. 9:945-967. 
Saitou, N., and M. Nei. 
1987. The neighbor-joining method: a new method for recon- 
structing phylogenetic trees. Mol. Biol. Evol. 4:406-425. 
Sankarankutty, C., A. C. Ferreira Roman, C. S. Callado Pinto, 
F. E. N. Varela Barca, and M. D. A. Alencar. 
1999. Callinectes maracaiboensis Taissoun (Crustacea, 
Decapoda, Portunidae), a species common but so far un- 
recorded in the northeast of Brazil. Rev. Bras. Zool. 16: 
145-150. 
Sarver, S. K., J. D. Silberman, and P. J. Walsh. 
1998. Mitochondrial DNA sequence evidence supporting the 
recognition of two subspecies or species of the Florida spiny 
lobster Panulirus argus. J. Crust. Biol. 18:177-186. 
Schneider-Broussard, R., D. L. Felder, C. A. Chian, and 
J. E. Neigel. 
1998. Tests of phylogeographic models with nuclear and 
mitochondrial DNA sequence variation in the stone crabs. 
