LENGTH–WEIGHT RELATIONS OF 70 FISH SPECIES (ACTINOPTERYGII) FROM TROPICAL COASTAL REGION OF PERNAMBUCO, NORTHEAST BRAZIL

Length– weight relations of 70 ﬁ sh species from tropical coastal region of Abstract. The presently reported study provides length–weight relations (LWR) of 70 ﬁ sh species (Actinopterygii) from the tropical coastal region of Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil: Achirus declivis , Achirus lineatus , Anchoa spinifer , Anchoa tricolor , Anchovia clupeoides , Archosargus rhomboidalis , Aspistor luniscutis , Aspistor quadriscutis , Bagre bagre , Bagre marinus , Bairdiella ronchus , Bathygobius soporator , Carangoides bartholomaei , Caranx hippos , Caranx latus , Caranx ruber , Centropomus parallelus , Centropomus pectinatus , Centropomus undecimalis , Chaetodipterus faber , Chloroscombrus chrysurus , Citharichthys spilopterus , Conodon nobilis , Ctenogobius boleosoma , Cynoscion virescens , Diapterus auratus , Diapterus rhombeus , Engraulis anchoita , Etropus crossotus , Eucinostomus argenteus , Eucinostomus gula , Eucinostomus havana , Gobionellus oceanicus , Gobionellus stomatus , Haemulon plumierii , Isopisthus parvipinnis , Larimus breviceps , Lutjanus alexandrei , Lutjanus analis , Lutjanus jocu , Lutjanus synagris , Lycengraulis grossidens , Macrodon ancylodon , Menticirrhus americanus , Micropogonias furnieri , Mugil curema , Mugil liza , Nebris microps , Opisthonema oglinum , Paralonchurus brasiliensis , Pellona harroweri , Polydactylus virginicus , Pomadasys corvinaeformis , Rhinosardinia bahiensis , Sciades herzbergii , Selene brownii , Selene vomer , Sparisoma radians , Sphoeroides greeleyi , Sphoeroides testudineus , Sphyraena guachancho , Stellifer brasiliensis , Stellifer microps , Stellifer rastrifer , Stellifer stellifer , Symphurus plagusia , Symphurus tessellatus , Thalassophryne nattereri Trichiurus lepturus , and Trinectes paulistanus. Data were collected between 2011 to 2014, using different ﬁ shing gears. The variation of the b coefﬁ cient for the majority of species felt within the expected range of 2.5 < b < 3.5. Additionally, this work provides the ﬁ rst LWR for 3 ﬁ

The Length-Weight Relation (LWR) is very important for the fi sheries management and for environmental monitoring programs (Morey et al. 2003) and it has been used to: • Estimate the weight of individual fi sh from its length (Beyer 1991); • Relate the changes of body shape and weight associated with different situations as growth or anthropogenic factors; • Infer body condition indices; • To compare fi sh populations or species from different regions and environment (Froese 2006, Siegle et al. 2014).
The objective of this study was to estimate the LWR for 70 fi sh species from the tropical coastal region of Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil.
Fish were collected in the estuarine and coastal regions of Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil, specifi cally in the district of Barra de Sirinhaém, southern littoral, and Itapissuma/Itamaracá, northern littoral.From 2011 to 2014, gill net, fi xed trap, beach seine, fi xed net, and trawler were deployed with the purpose to collects samples representing as many species as possible and representing different sizes.The species caught were identifi ed based on the specifi c taxonomic keys (Figueiredo and Menezes 2000, Allen 1985, Whitehead 1985, Carpenter 2002).Fishes were measured, weighed, and, whenever possible, the sexes were determined.
Prior to calculation of the LWR, outliers for each species were graphically identifi ed using total length (TL) vs. total weight (TW) plots (Froese and Binohlan 2000) and removed.The LWR values were estimated using the equation (Santos et al. 2002, Froese 2006, Froese et al. 2011): where TW is the total weight (in g); TL is the total length (in cm); a is the intercept of the regression curve (intercept of TW when TL is zero or initial growth coeffi cient) and b is the regression slope (coeffi cient indicating isometric or allometric growth).The relation is considered to be isometric when b = 3, hypoallometric or negative allometric when b < 3, and hyperallometric or positive allometric when b > 3 (Froese et al. 2011).LWR for combined sexes was estimated for 70 species, whereas for 32, the relation was also estimated by sex: 20 speciesboth sexes, 3 species-males, and 9 species-females.
To investigate whether the slope b was signifi cantly different from the isometric value, a t-test were performed (H 0 = 3), with a confi dence level of 95% (Zar 2010).The differences between males and females were also compared by the Student's t-test.The fi t of the model to the data was measured by the coeffi cient of Pearson r-squared (R²).
Considering the relation by gender, allometry was observed for 18 species, where 11 females and 7 males resulted in positive allometry, with b ranging from 3.11 to 3.44 (3.28 ± 0.1) (Table 1).Comparisons between sex of the LWR slope b, presented signifi cant differences for 11 species (Table 1).
The variation of the LWR slope for the majority of species occurred within the expected range, between 2.50 and 3.50, as demonstrated by Froese (2006).Allometric tendencies may be the result of adaptations, such as ontogenetic, reproductive or environmental variations, mainly between sexes (Froese 2006).The estimates of a and b for the majority of species also felt within the obtained by the Bayesian approach for estimating LWR in fi shes proposed by Froese et al. (2014) and the values are available in the database of FishBase (Froese and Pauly 2016).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research has been supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Ciência e Tecnologia do Estado de Pernambuco (FACEPE) and by the National Institute on Science and Technology in Tropical Marine Environments (INCT-AmbTropic).We thank the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científi co e Tecnológico (CNPq) for providing a research grant (to FLF and TF) and a visitor research grant (to FM).The Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) provided doctoral scholarship (to VF) and master scholarship (to ASL).We would also like to acknowledge that the fi rst author (APV) received a postdoctoral fellowship (CNPq) from "Ciências sem Fronteiras".

Table 1
Weight-Length relations for 70 fi sh species captured in the coastal regions of Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil, from 2011 to 2014 (see table's footnote for symbol explanation) Species

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