Marine Biology Commons^™

Life-History Characteristics And Fishery Dynamics Of Red Drum (Sciaenops Ocellatus), In The North-Central Gulf Of Mexico, Corbin Bennetts

Master's Theses

Red Drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) are highly targeted recreationally in the Gulf of Mexico, and support a small commercial fishery in Mississippi. Despite their popularity, the stock is assessed using data limited approaches that necessitate accurate life history information. I estimated the year-specific and year-aggregated escapement rates for the Mississippi stock (years 2004 to 2015), which were sensitive to mortality estimation methods; year-aggregated estimates were 6.9 to 28.2 % depending on the method, but temporal patterns were consistent. I then addressed concerns with previously estimated life-history characteristics by describing the sex-specific growth and reproductive dynamics. The three-parameter von Bertalanffy …