Macrobrachium Macrobrachion (Herklots, 1851) Length-Weight Relationship and Fultonʹs Condition Factor in Luubara creek, Ogoni Land, Niger Delta, Nigeria

Macrobrachium macrobrachion length-weight relationship and Fultonʹs condition factor was studied in Luubara creek of Ogoni land in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria for a period of two years (January, 2006-December, 2007). A strong positive relationship exist between the shrimp length and weight for males in 2006; length and weight in females in 2006 and length and weight in both sexes in 2006( b<3) except for both sexes in 2006 with b = 3.13. Hence growth in the individual sex is allometric (b<3), but when the sexes were combined the growth was also allometric (b>3). The values obtained from the length/weight relationship (LWR) showed that there was a high and significant correlation between the total length and weight. The high correlation coefficient r =0.95 was an indication of a strong association between length and weight. This means that as the length of fish increases the weight increases in the same proportion. Coefficient of determination r2 was also high (0.91) which indicted that the model used for the analysis fits the data, confirming the fitness of the model. The results of the Fultonʹs condition factor, K. In males, the highest condition factor (K = 0.00718) was recorded in August, 2007 while the lowest result in male (K = 0.001) was recorded in July, 2006. In females, the lowest condition factor (K = 0.000066) was in December, 2006 while the highest condition factor (K = 0.00157) for females was in October, 2006. In the berried females, the month of March, 2007 has the highest condition factor (K =0.002) while the lowest K value of 0.00097 was recorded in February and September, 2006. In 2006 the range of K was from 0.00084 to 0.00194, (females); 0.00066 - 0.00015 (males) and 0.00097 - 0.00144 for berried females. In 2007, the condition factor ranged from 0.00718 to 0.00109 (male), 0.00097 to 0.00147 (female) and 0.00099 - 0.002 (berried female). The mean condition factor was both sex and season dependent. There were significant variations between sexes. The differences in condition factors were in male and females may be attributed to the presence of ovigerous females.