352 
Fishery Bulletin 114(3) 
Figure 3 
Morphometric relationships for a subsample of 185 male and 138 fe- 
male red deepsea crab (Chaceon quinquedens) captured in the Mid- 
Atlantic Bight during 2011-2013: (A) carapace width with spines 
(spine width) versus carapace length, (B) chela length versus carapace 
length, (C) male chela height versus carapace length, and (D) male 
chela height versus chela propodus length. 
sites (12.6, 107.5, and 13.8 kg/ha, respec- 
tively), and we multiplied those values by 
area estimates for similar depth strata 
within the same geographic sector from 
Wahle et al. (2008) to provide a depth- 
stratified estimated biomass of 9143 t 
for sector A. This value was lower than 
the approximately 30,000 t estimated by 
Wahle (2008) during 2003-2005, but it is 
almost identical to the 9000 t estimated 
by Wigley et al. (1975) 20 years earlier. 
We could not separate biomass by sex or 
size because crab were usually weighed 
in aggregate. During the survey by Wahle 
et al. (2008), the highest biomass densi- 
ties occurred in sectors C and D along the 
edge of the southern New England shelf, 
whereas most of our tows were made in 
sectors A and B, which had the lowest 
biomass in both the 1974 and 2003-2005 
surveys. Mean biomass density over all 
our stations (42.8 kg/ha) was in the same 
range (7-80 kg/ha) as levels observed for 
C. maritae off Namibia (Hastie, 1995), 
but it was much greater than the 1.9 kg/ 
ha calculated for the golden deepsea crab 
off the coast of South Carolina (Wenner 
and Barans, 1990) that were surveyed 
with an occupied submersible. 
Size of crabs 
Selectivity of commercial crab traps 
ranges from 0% at 80 mm CW to 100% 
at 120 mm CW (Wahle et al., 2008), 
Table 6 
Morphometric relationships for male and female red deepsea crab (Chaecon quinquedens) 
captured from the mid-Atlantic Bight during 2011-2013. Response and predictor variables 
are, abdomen width (AW), chela propodus length (ChL), carapace length (CL), spine width 
(SW). Fem(i or m) refers to immature or mature females. Other abbreviations: intercept (Int), 
coefficient of determination (r^), degrees of freedom (df), and allometry coefficient (AC; slope 
of log-transformed relationship). 
Sex 
Response 
Predictor 
Int 
Slope 
r2 
df 
AC 
Both 
SW 
CL 
5.45 
1.180 
0.976 
1313 
0.94 
Both 
CL 
SW 
-2.65 
0.826 
0.976 
1313 
1.03 
Male 
ChL 
CL 
-5.78 
0.962 
0.977 
184 
1.09 
Fern 
ChL 
CL 
7.55 
0.671 
0.952 
137 
0.86 
Fem(i) 
AW 
CL 
-13.0 
0.735 
0.967 
105 
1.40 
Fem(m) 
AW 
CL 
-8.38 
0.677 
0.937 
74 
1.19 
Fem(all) 
AW 
CL 
-12.26 
0.725 
0.966 
182 
Male 
ChH 
CL 
-3.52 
0.362 
0.954 
184 
1.16 
Male 
ChH 
ChL 
-1.44 
0.378 
0.983 
184 
1.06 
