Recruitment pattern of Mugil cephalus in Chilika lagoon, East coast of India

Abstract

Fish samples were collected randomly from gill net catches in the Chilika lagoon during the period from January 2024 to December 2025. A total of 600 numbers of Mugil cephalus representing different size groups ranging between 15.8 and 63.4cm in total length and 93.4 gm to 2560 gm in total weight were collected from fishing grounds inside Chilika lagoon. The recruitment pattern of Mugil cephalus was analyzed based on the length-frequency data using the FiSAT software package. The intensity of recruitments were 0.46%, 3.14%, 5.3%, 10.2%, 41.23%, 13.81%, 18.22%, 16.27%, 10.9%, 5.36%, 1.84% and 0.00 in the month of January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December during 2024 respectively, where as it was 0.4%, 0.37%, 1.53%, 0.77%, 3.99%, 6.72%, 14.33%, 23.13%, 24.52%, 19.09%, 5.15% and 0.00 in month of January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December during 2025 respectively. Comparing both the years, the uniformity were better in 2024 than 2025. The statistical analysis revealed a significant difference the recruitment pattern between the years (p