348 
National Marine 
Fisheries Service 
NOAA 
Abstract —-The picarel (Spicara 
smaris) is an interesting species of 
the Mediterranean Sea fishery, yet 
little information is available on life 
history of this protogynous species. 
A total of 6458 picarel (4.3 to 20.7 
cm total length [TL]) were sampled 
from the Saronikos Gulf, an im¬ 
portant fishing area in the eastern 
Mediterranean, during 1998 and 
1999 to assess their age structure, 
sex-based growth, and sex-change 
pattern. Marginal-increment analy¬ 
sis combined with otolith edge anal¬ 
ysis (n=1694) showed that the time 
of annulus formation was around 
July (i.e., at the end of the spawning 
season). The length and age at sex 
change were estimated to be 15.3 
cm TL and 3.0 years, respectively. 
The proportion of early maturing 
males, or males maturing before the 
length at sex change (L 50 ), was 2.4%, 
whereas the ratio of L 50 to maxi¬ 
mum length was 0.74, approximat¬ 
ing the dimensionless theory. Males 
were shown to become longer than 
females, and the decreasing growth 
rate noticed between summer and 
autumn in fish older than 2 years, 
resulted in a strong oscillating 
growth pattern, clearly attributed to 
the synergistic effect of sex change 
and to large differences in summer 
and winter temperatures. Addition¬ 
ally, an alternative method for as¬ 
signing fish to age groups, based on 
clusters derived from length distri¬ 
butions, is proposed. 
Manuscript submitted 18 January 2018. 
Manuscript accepted 14 September 2018. 
Fish. Bull. 116:348-359 (2018). 
Online publication date: 22 October (2018). 
doi: 10.7755/FB.116.3-4.12 
The views and opinions expressed or 
implied in this article are those of the 
author (or authors) and do not necessarily 
reflect the position of the National 
Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. 
Fishery Bulletin 
& established in 1881 •<?. 
Spencer F. Baird 
First U S. Commissioner 
of Fisheries and founder 
of Fishery Bulletin 
Sex change and oscillating growth pattern of 
the picarel {Spicara smaris) in the Saronikos 
Gulf (Greece) 
Constantina Karlou-Riga (retired) 1 
Dimitra Petza (contact author) 1 ' 2 ' 3 
Konstantinos Ganias 4 
Email address for contact author: d.petza@marine.aegean.gr 
1 Fisheries Laboratory 
Hellenic Ministry of Rural Development and Food 
15 Karaoli and Demetriou Street 
Piraeus 18531, Greece 
2 Department of Marine Sciences 
University of the Aegean 
University Hill 
Mytilene 81100, Greece 
3 Directorate General for Fisheries 
Hellenic Ministry of Rural Development and Food 
150 Syggrou Avenue 
Athens 1 7671, Greece 
4 School of Biology 
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki 
University Campus 
Thessaloniki 54124, Greece 
The picarel (Spicara smarts ) is a 
very common species in the Mediter¬ 
ranean Sea and the Black Sea, but 
also occurs in the Sea of Marmara in 
Turkey and the southern part of the 
Sea of Azov, which connects Ukraine 
and Russia (Russell et ah, 2015). 
Species of the genus Spicara occur 
in shallow rocky and muddy bot¬ 
toms throughout the Mediterranean 
Sea and the Black Sea, in the Atlan¬ 
tic Ocean from Portugal to Morocco, 
and around the Canary Islands (Fro- 
ese and Pauly 1 ). These species con¬ 
tribute to inshore fisheries in Greece 
(Mytilineou and Papaconstantinou, 
1991; Stergiou et ah, 2011), and rep- 
1 Froese, R., and D. Pauly. 2018. Spi¬ 
cara smaris (Linnaeus, 1758): Picarel. 
FishBase. World Wide Web electronic 
publication. [Available from website.] 
resent a major proportion of the total 
catch for coastal fisheries in Croatia 
(Duldic et al., 2000). These species 
are also part of bycatch in the Medi¬ 
terranean Sea but have low commer¬ 
cial value (Ragonese et al., 2004). 
The picarel has been observed 
at depths from 15 to 170 m (Froese 
and Pauly 1 ) and down to 328 m in 
the eastern Ionian Sea (Mytilineou 
et ah, 2005). This species has been 
used as a bio-indicator of the coastal 
and neritic environment (Wacquant 
and Lamare 2 ). 
In Greece, the picarel is rather 
popular as a food item and commer- 
2 Wacquant, C., and V. Lamare. 2014. 
Spicara smaris (Linnaeus, 1758). In 
Donnees d’Observations pour la Recon¬ 
naissance et Tldentification de la faune 
et la flore Subaquatiques (DORIS), 
30/03/2014. [Available from website.] 
