Species composition and community structure of aquatic organisms caught by the trial fishing gear for <i>Metapenaeus joyneri</i> in the coastal water of Gochang

Although the abundance of Metapenaeus joyneri resources with high commercial value was recently confirmed in the outer waters of Gomso Bay, located between Buan-gun and Gochang-gun, Jeollabuk-do, Metapenaeus joyneri resources have not been efficiently utilized due to the absence of fishing gears and methods for a selective Metapenaeus joyneri capture. Therefore, in this study, we adopted shrimp dredge as a trial fishing gear for the Metapenaeus joyneri capture, and analyzed the species composition and cluster community structure of aquatic organisms caught by the shrimp dredge, from May to September 2021 at the coastal waters of Gochang-gun, Jeollabuk-do. During the experimental period, 28 types of marine species of 29,190 individuals and 250,136 g of total biomass were caught. Among them, the population of Metapenaeus joyneri , the target species, dominated by 80.7%, followed by Thrysa chefuensis with 7.1%, and Leiognathus nuchalis with 6.0%, confirming that the fishing ratio of Metapenaeus joyneri was the highest among all species.