Fishing investigation and species composition of the catches caught by a bottom trawl in the deep East Sea

Abstract

The investigation for the species composition and catch in the deep East Sea was carried out with commercial trawlers from 2004 to 2006. The catches were 6,043kg and were composed of 43 species with 34 hauls between 250m and 1,030m in depth. The principal species caught were Allolepis hollandi, red crab (Chionoecetes japonicus), Careproctus rastrinus, Argis lar, Chionoecetes opilio, Malacocottus gibber, Petroschmidtia toyamensis, Pandalus eous Makarov, and Dasycottus setiger. The rate of discarded catches in situ was about 50%. The diversity indexes of 2005 and 2006 were 1.152 and 0.878, respectively, and the evenness indexes at those years were 0.752 and 0.583, respectively, which implied one dominant species caught in 2006.