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Correspondence should be addressed to: U. Markaida, Investigación de Recursos Bioacuáticos y su Ambiente, Instituto Nacional de Pesca, Letamendi 102 y La Ría, Guayaquil, Ecuador email: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION
Octopus mimus has been described for Peru and northern Chile (Norman et al., 2014). Recent genetic evidence suggests that Octopus hubbsorum, distributed off western Mexico, and O. mimus belong to the same taxon (Pliego-Cárdenas et al., 2014). Thus O. mimus would range from the Gulf of California to northern Chile. It is the main octopus fishery in the Eastern Pacific, with combined annual catches ranging 3–6.5 × 103 t, mostly taken with hookah or free diving (Zúñiga et al., 2014; Markaida & Gilly, 2016). However, the fishery is only regulated in Peru and Chile, where regional and temporal closures have been considered, plus a minimum legal size (MLS) of 1 kg BW (Rodhouse et al., 2014; Emery et al., 2016; Markaida & Gilly, 2016).
Octopus mimus spawn year-round with a reproductive peak occurring mainly in summer off Peru and Chile and in winter-spring off western Mexico. Potential fecundity ranges from 60,000 and 400,000 eggs. Hatchlings are planktonic (Cardoso et al., 2004; López-Uriarte & Ríos-Jara, 2009; Zúñiga et al., 2014).
In Ecuador the octopus fishery has no official status as there are no management measures as well as no catch records (Norman et al., 2014; Markaida & Gilly, 2016). However, this fishery has some tradition among small fishing communities in the Santa Elena Peninsula, Manta and Salango (Mora, 1993; Loor-Andrade, 2006; Naranjo-Tibanlombo, 2009; Pliego-Cárdenas et al., 2016; Simbaña-Suquillo, 2017), where fishermen target them by free diving or hookah. The species involved in the fishery has been identified as Octopus mimus based on morphological traits (Loor-Andrade, 2006; Carreño-Maldonado, 2012). Recent genetic analysis validated this identification, while showing that they are more closely related to specimens from Central America than those from the Peruvian province (Pliego-Cárdenas et al., 2016). Knowledge on the biology and fishery of this octopus in Ecuador is still scarce and unpublished.
We describe the population biology of octopus taken by the artisanal fishery in a marine protected area of the Santa Elena peninsula. The objective of this work is adjusted to obtain parameters of...