Factors Affecting Shrimp Recruitment

Sander, F

Barbados lies 90 miles (145 km) to the east of the Lesser Antilles. It is a small isolated coral-capped non-volcanic island with a regular coastline with no major rivers nor attendant estuaries. The 100 fathom (183m) contour lies only about one mile (1.6 km) offshore, and the relief of the narrow shelf is irregular with the bottom in most localities falling off sharply. Furthermore, the slope comprises areas of rocky or coral-and sponge-studded bottom, which may have shrimp, but where fishing would be rather hazardous to gear. The reasons, therefore, why commercial shrimp trawling is not conducted are practical, i.e. a limited area of resource coupled with operational difficulties in exploiting existing stocks. This does not mean, of course, that shrimp do not exist off Barbados. Shrimp of the West Indies region probably exceed the 192 species listed by Dr. Fenner Chace in the 1972 Smithsonaian-Bredin Caribbean Expeditions Report (Chace, 1972), and Barbados has its share of these, including an array of coral shrimp, snapping shrimp and cleaning shrimp such Pederson's cleaning shrimp, Periclemenes pedersoni. For example, dredging program, undertaken between 60 and 120 fathoms (110-219 m) off the west coast of the island, produced such species as Synalpheus townsendi, Alpheus plasei, Periclemenes americanus, Periclimenaeus bermudensis, Anchistodes antiguensis, Sicyonia stimpsoni and the potentially commercially valuable Metapenaeopsis smithi (Lewis, 1965).

Factors Affecting Shrimp Recruitment

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