[Abundance of sea urchin Lytechinus variegatus (Lamarck) on North, East and West coasts of Margarita Island (Venezuela) ].

Abstract

The sea urchin roe reach a very high price in the international fish product market favoring the increase in the catches of this resource and overfishing in some countries. In the Island of Margarita (Venezuela) some species, Lytechinus variegatus (Lamarck) among others, are consumed as food but studies to determine abundance of the resource are unknown. Nine sample stations (depth less than 2 m) on the North, East and West coast of Margarita Island were visited in six different occasions between February/1998 and February/1999 to study the population density (urchins/m2) of L. variegatus. Using a quadrat (0.25 m2) thrown 8 times over seagrasses (Thalassia testudinum) beds and over submerged rocks and the urchins removed by dive. The diameter of each specimen was measured and returned to the sea. The water temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen of each site was measured. Were collected a total of 2,073 urchins with a diameter ranging from 11.0 to 84.5 mm and population density between 1 to 52 urchins/m2. The mean size of specimens collected in the stations was between 30.44 and 55.09 mm and average density fluctuated between 3.2 to 43.2 urchins/m2. The station where sea urchins were found to be most abundant was the North coast (Manzanillo fishing villae) where they live on rocks with a density (38 a 52/m2) far over the values previously cited for the Caribbean sea and Florida.