Interannual variation of growth of the brown shrimp Farfantepenaeus californiensis and its relation to temperature

We evaluated the interannual variation in the growth of brown shrimp Farfantepenaeus californiensis and the relation of this variation with sea surface temperature in the Gulf of California, Mexico. We used daily samplings of commercial captures at the packing plant at Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico from 1978 to 1994, samplings of commercial captures on board trawlers of the commercial fleet that operated along the coast of Sonora during the fishing seasons 1989-1995, and the monthly average of the sea surface temperature recorded by the oceanographic station of the Institute of Geophysics of the National University of Mexico, in Guaymas, Sonora from 1978 to 1995. The growth in the brown shrimp showed clear interannual variations. The relation between the temperature and the φ′ and temperature and the growth coefficient K could be represented by a gaussian function that was significant (P < 0.05). We found the optimum temperature for growth was 25 °C with decreases in growth efficiency on both sides of this value.