Effect of environmental factors, especially hypoxia and typhoons, on recruitment of the gazami crab Portunus trituberculatus in Osaka Bay, Japan

Important crustacean fisheries occur in semi-enclosed seas. These fisheries can be strongly affected by intense exploitation and episodic anthropogenic and climatic events, but the effects of such events remain largely uninvestigated. To assess the influence of such factors, we examined dredge catch data on the gazami crab Portunus trituberculatus in Osaka Bay, Japan from 1984 to 2008 and investigated various associated environmental factors. There were five peak monthly catches during the study period, which typically occurred in August or November. Relative abundance (measured as catch per unit effort) in August was positively associated with previous recruitments to the fishery, typhoon frequency, and dissolved oxygen saturation during the juvenile period. In comparison, relative abundance in November was strongly correlated with the number of typhoons and was also positively associated with dissolved oxygen levels in the bottom water. The results of our multi-decadal study suggest that hypoxia is a principal agent of mortality for juvenile crabs and that normoxia in the nursery habitats is a necessary condition for the successful recruitment of individuals into the adult population. The positive influence of typhoons on recruitment is probably due increased mixing in stratified coastal waters, which disrupts the persistent hypoxia in bottom waters, but other unknown processes may also contribute to favorable recruitments.