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Relationships Between Fish Length Otolith Size of Diplodus vulgaris from Boughrara and El Bibane Lagoons (Southeastern Tunisia)

Maissa Khedher and Manel Fatnassi

In this study, the relationships between total fish length and otolith biometry parameters (length, width and weight) of Diplodus vulgaris (Teleostei, Sparidae), sampled from two Tunisian lagoons (Boughrara and El Bibane), were examined. The individuals of the two samples presented a symmetry in their otolith pairs (no significant differences between left-right: t-test, P>0.05), thus, only right otoliths have been used for the statistic analyzes. Fish length-otolith biometry relationships have been represented by linear regressions. The highest correlation was observed between body length and otolith weight (R2=0.662, R2=0.56) following otolith length (R2=0.42, R2=0.23) and the last were otolith width (R2=0.33, R2=0.20), respectively for Boughrara and El Bibane lagoons. This strong relationship between otolith weight and total length of Diplodus vulgaris, reflect that sagittal weight could be used as the best predictor of fish length.