Kordian Trella
Sea Fisheries Institute, Kołłątaja 1, 81-332 Gdynia, Poland
Key words: walleye pollock, Theragra chalcogramma, fecundity, Sea of Okhotsk, southwest Kamchatka.
Abstract.
This paper presents an estimate of the fecundity of walleye pollock from spawning
grounds located off of the southwest coast of Kamchatka. The individual fecundity
of females ranged from 67.7 to 724.5 thousand eggs, and was dependent principally
on fork length and specimen weight. This dependence was described with regression
equations: length - fecundity: F = 0.27L3.5708; weight
n fecundity: F = 396.456W - 36255.7.
Male walleye pollock reach
50% sexual maturity at a fork length of 33.5 cm, while females do so at a fork
length of 37.4 cm.
When the results of the present walleye pollock fecundity
studies conducted in 2000 were compared with previous results presented by other
authors, it was confirmed that changes which occurred in the ecosystem of the
northern region of the Sea of Okhotsk in the mid 1990s did not impact the fecundity
of this species.