1. Lincoln Odeya: Length-Weight relationships and Condition Factor (K) of Lutjanids from
Marine Waters of Kenya.
Abstract
Snappers of the family Lutjanidae are small to large predatory fishes that reside in the
inshore circumtropical and subtropical waters throughout the world and do support
fisheries across their distribution. The morphometric relationships and condition factor
among the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) Lutjanids are unknown. This study describes the
findings of the total catch composition and catch per unit effort, and goes further to
investigate the length-weight relationship and condition factor (Fulton’s K) of three major
lutjanus species found during the period between May 2015 and February 2016.
Of the catch landed, sharks were the dominant of all the species caught, in terms of
weight, representing 32%, followed by the Yellowfin Tuna at 13%, while L.
argentimaticulatus recorded 7% of the total catch landed. Parrotfishes, flathead mullets,
and mackerels recorded the least almost close to negligible percentages.
Three major species of Lutjanus fishes investigated in this study included the L.
argentimaticulatus, L. fulviflamma, and L. sanguineus. The length-weight coefficients of
the form W = aLb of all the lutjanids were found to be a = 1.14 and b = 3.06, while the
general regression for all the lutjanids was significantly high with the coefficient of
determination (r2) going up to 0.97. TL-BW relationships were best expressed by
log10BW=3.0382log10TL–4.9178 for L. argentimaticulatus,
log10BW=2.5478log10TL–3.7811 for L. fulviflamma and log10BW=2.5603log10TL–
3.6534 for L. sanguineus. The condition factor (K) of all the three lutjanids ranged from
0.83 to 2.74. Growth coefficient, b obtained from Length-Weight relationships were
indicative of positive allometric growth pattern.
Student’s t-test (p=0.05) showed that the weights of fish of a particular length and their
physiological conditions had differences that were highly significant (p=<0.05).
Key words: Lutjanus, Morphometric relationship, Condition factor, Western Indian
Ocean.
