Direct and Indirect Estimates of Natural Mortality for Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab

Direct and Indirect Estimates of Natural Mortality for Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab

—Analyses of the population dynamics of blue crab Callinectes sapidus have been complicated by a lack of estimates of the instantaneous natural mortality rate (M). We developed the first direct estimates of M for this species by solving Baranov’s catch equation for M given estimates of annual survival rate and exploitation rate. Annual survival rates were estimated from a tagging study on adult...

Distribution of Blue Crab in Chesapeake Bay

7 Short title: Landscape-based geostatistics 8 9 Olaf P. Jensen, Mary C. Christman, and Thomas J. Miller 10 11 12 University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Chesapeake Biological 13 Laboratory, P.O. Box 38, 1 Williams St., Solomons, MD 20688 14 15 Current address: University of Wisconsin Center for Limnology, 680 N Park St., 16 Madison, WI 53706, USA 17 18 Dept. Animal and Avian Sc...

Temporal Variation in Juvenile Blue Crab Mortality: Nearshore Shallows and Cannibalism in Chesapeake Bay

Adult abundance is determined by both recruitment and survival of juveniles. Blue crabs exhibit a distinct population size-structure reflecting seasonal cycles of recruitment and growth in the Rhode River, a subestuary lacking submerged vegetation in central Chesapeake Bay. Seasonally shifting modes in the size-structure, corresponding to juvenile, prepubertal and mature crabs, allowed trawl ca...

A Model for the Population of the Blue Crab in the Chesapeake Bay

We model the population of the Blue Crab in the Chesapeake Bay by using differential equations. Blue crabs are inherently cannibalistic of juveniles, while also in competition with juvenile blue crabs for resources. These differential equations describe the intraguild predation consistent in the blue crab food web, as well as the cannibalistic nature of the blue crab. We introduce an aging and ...

Japanese Hatchery-based Stock Enhancement: Lessons for the Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab