A COMPARISON OF THE LENGTH DISTRIBUTIONS OF LARVAL CAPELIN (MALLOTUS-VILLOSUS) TAKEN BY GULF-III, MIK AND MOCNESS SAMPLERS

Abundance of Barents Sea capelin larvae (6-25 mm) is estimated every s ummer using samples from a Gulf III sampler. It has been suggested tha t a MIK net would be more efficient in sampling larvae exceeding 18-20 mm in length. On this basis the length distributions of larval capeli n captured by Gulf III, MIK, and MOCNESS in six consecutive hauls were compared. The catches taken by Gulf III and MIK nets had similar leng th distributions whereas the MOCNESS captured smaller larvae than the other samplers. There would thus be no gain in replacing the Gulf III with the MIK for estimating abundance of larval capelin smaller than 2 5 mm.