Relationship between biometric parameters and fecundity of crab Potamon koolooense (Rathbun, 1904) from hillstream Khoh of Uttarakhand, India

The present study was carried out to determine the relationship between biometric parameters and fecundity of Potamon koolooense (P. koolooense), a freshwater crab inhabiting the hillstream Khoh of Uttarakhand. A total of 90 female crab samples were taken from a local fisherman for data analysis during January 2015 to December 2015. Out of them, 42 were ovigerous and 48 were non-ovigerous female. Fecundity ranged from 124 eggs for crab of carapace width 3.3 cm, carapace length 2.5 cm, abdominal width 1.3 cm and total weight 17.7 gm to 375 eggs for crab of carapace width 4.7cm, carapace length 3.5 cm, abdominal width 2.3 cm and total weight 43.8 gm. Highly positive significant relationship was found between fecundity (F) and carapace width (CW): R2 = 0.955, p<0.01, n = 42, carapace length (CL): R2 = 0.673, p<0.01, n = 42, abdominal width (AW): R2 = 0.867, p<0.01, n = 42 and total weight (TW): R2 = 0.915, p<0.01, n = 42. Carapace width is best correlated with fecundity among all the biometric parameters. Data of frequency of occurrence of ovigerous and non-ovigerous female suggests that the species spawns from the end of February to mid-July.