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Growth, mortality and exploitation rates of Lethrinus atlanticus in the marine waters of Ghana, West Africa
Abstract
Some aspects of population parameters of L. atlanticus in the marine waters of Ghana were studied from July 2018 to June 2019. Length based data were obtained from 473 samples and analyzed using the TropFishR package in R software. The growth parameters including asymptotic length (Lā), growth (K) and growth performance index (phi) were 27.0 cm TL, was 27 cm TL, 1.73 yr-1, and 3.239 respectively, with Rn value of 0.29. The total, natural and fishing mortality rate (Z) were 5.03 yr-1, 2.08 yr-1 and 2.96 yr-1 respectively Exploitation rate (E) was slightly higher than the optimum level of 0.5, suggesting that the species is sustainably exploited.