RIGERS BAKIU1*, DRILON MOLLOSMANI1
|
1 Department of Aquaculture and Fisheries, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, Agricultural University of Tirana, Koder-Kamez, Abstract The North America fish species, commonly known as pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus), represents a smallbodied, warm-water fish that has been introduced firstly in Europe as an ornamental fish in the 19th century from North America, while in Albania, it was introduced in 1994. The aim of the study is not only to add another country to the long list of European countries, where pumpkinseed has shown the highest establishment success, but also to start evaluating the growth and abundance, which can be important for the interactions with local fish species. In addition, following the Local Ekological Knowledge approach, it was conducted a questionnary based survey in all the aquaculture farms of Dumrea region. In one of Belshi Lakes of Dumre region (Elbasan), for a time-period of 1 year, weight and morphological parameters were determined for every individual fished by using fixed fishing net once a month, while it was registered the abundance of the other fished species. The analysed catch composition and the abundance values indicated remarkable difference along the year. It was also estimated the length-weight relationship and the relative parameters (a and b coefficients). Generally, the results showed that during the December and January almost all pumpkinseed individuals were frequenting higher depth areas in the lake (confirmed by using sonar fish finder), while the abundance seems to be consistent during the remaining months, thought its pumkinseed individuals showed negative allometric growth characteristics. Keywords: length-weight estimation; pumkinseed; Local Ecological Knowledge; Dumre region; freshwater |