Does damming of the Colorado River affect the nursery area of blue shrimp Litopenaeus stylirostris (Decapoda: Penaeidae) in the Upper Gulf of California?

After damming the Colorado River the freshwater flow was reduced to 1 % of its virgin flow to the Upper Gulf of California (UGC). The ecological effects need to be properly documented. The UGC is the nursery area for Litopenaeus stylirostris, the most profitable fishery in the zone. In order to know...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Aragón-Noriega, Eugenio Alberto, Calderón-Aguilera, Luis Eduardo
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2000
Country:Costa Rica
Institution:Universidad de Costa Rica
Repository:Portal de Revistas UCR
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:portal.ucr.ac.cr:article/18903
Online Access:https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/rbt/article/view/18903
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:upper gulf of california
colorado river
shrimp postlarvae
litopenaeus stylirostris
abundance
Description
Summary:After damming the Colorado River the freshwater flow was reduced to 1 % of its virgin flow to the Upper Gulf of California (UGC). The ecological effects need to be properly documented. The UGC is the nursery area for Litopenaeus stylirostris, the most profitable fishery in the zone. In order to know the relative abundance of L. stylirostris postlarval stage we conducted a sampled survey every 14 days in 1993, 1994 and 1997, plus an intensive sampling during a complete tide cycle in July 1995 and 1996. We did 10 min trawls each hour during the flood tide. Relative abundance of postlarvae was higher (p<0.05) in those years when freshwater flow reached the UGC.