Allometric relationships of the clam Marcia opima (Gmelin, 1791), collected
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Authors
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N Suja
Tuticorin Research Centre of CMFR Institute, Tuticorin-628 001, Tamil Nadu, India.
-
P Muthiah
Tuticorin Research Centre of CMFR Institute, Tuticorin-628 001, Tamil Nadu, India.
Abstract
The relationship between various morphological attributes such as shell-on weight, length, width, height, wet meat weight
and dry meat weight of the baby clam,
Marcia opima was studied from two longitudinally separated localities viz
., Tuticorin
Bay along the south-east coast and Ashtamudi Lake along the south-west coast of India. Using the equation, W= aL
b
, the
relationship between length and shell-on weight was established. The relation between a part and the whole body or between
parts of a growing animal is described by the general equation Y= a+bX. The slope values of the length - weight relationship
of the baby clam followed the cube law. It was also observed that true allometric relationships exist between weights and
linear measurements. The values of correlation coefficient for different morphological relationships were very close to unity.
Length is found to be the most useful parameter to predict other biomass parameters from field study.
