Author(s)

Héla Jaziri^*, Widien Khoufi, Sadok Ben Meriem

National Institute of Sciences and Technologies of the Sea (INSTM), Port La Goulette, Tunisia.

In frame of fisheries management, a stock assessment using surplus production models incorporating environmental parameters was dealt with one of the most important commercially crustacean fisheries resources along the Tunisian coast, the Melicertus kerathurus stock. The analysis was carried out for a period of 17 years with a database including fishing efforts, catches, catch per unit effort (CPUE) and sea surface temperature (SST). CLIMPROD is the software used to select the appropriate model and fit to the fishery and environmental data. Overall, SST was positively correlated to the yield and abundance index (CPUE) explaining 47% and 57% of their variability respectively, nevertheless. The incorporation of the SST in global model demonstrated that the SST influenced both the catchability and the abundance of this species separately. In fact the impact of SST leads to consider a production model impacted on the one hand by a linear relationship between the CPUE and the fishing effort, and on the other hand by also a linear relationship between the CPUE and the SST for both catchability or abundance of the species. The interpretation of global model with environmental parameters is changed with the incorporation of climate parameter.

Melicertus kerathurus, SST, Abundance, Catchability, Assessment

Jaziri, H. , Khoufi, W. and Meriem, S. (2015) Assessment Approach of Melicertus kerathurus Stock along the North-Eastern Tunisian Coast Using a Surplus Production Model Incorporating Temperature Parameter. American Journal of Climate Change, 4, 417-430. doi: 10.4236/ajcc.2015.45034.