Biological characteristics of the common pandora, Pagellus erythrinus (Linnaeus, 1758), in the central Aegean Sea

We investigated the length distribution, sex ratio, sex inversion length, length-weight relationship, age, growth, spawning period, age and length at first maturity of the common pandora inhabiting İzmir Bay. A total of 2654 common pandora were collected by trawl hauls of İzmir Bay (Turkey) between January 2002 and June 2007. The size of the samples ranged from 4.1 cm (0.95 g, February) to 27.8 cm (207.30 g, April) in total length. The samples were composed of 64.7% females, 5.1% males, 0.3% hermaphrodites, and 29.9% immature individuals, with a female to male ratio of 1:0.08. The age composition of the samples ranged between 1 and 10 years. The length-weight relationship and the von Bertalanffy growth function were estimated for all individuals as: W = 0.0143L2.95 and Lt = 30.673[1 – e^–0.165(t – (–0.857))]. The spawning period started in June and continued until October. The total lengths at first maturity of females and males were 11.30 and 15.08 cm, respectively.