Morphometric Conversions for 33 Shark Species from the Western North Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

This study generates and updates mathematical conversions among body length and weight measurements of sharks commonly encountered in the western North Atlantic Ocean. At the initiation of individual research programs, standardized measurements are determined to meet program objectives, yet these measurements often vary among programs and may differ within programs over time. Since length is of vital importance to understanding the basic biology of a species (e.g., growth, length at maturity) and to enforce management regulations based on size, it is necessary to have length-length and length-weight conversions to be able to standardize measurements for individual species. We compiled length and weight data on sharks from nine research programs operating in the western North Atlantic Ocean from Canada through the Gulf of Mexico to obtain length-length and length-weight conversions for 27 species and 3 genera consisting of 6 species. Length-length and length-weight conversions are presented for all species using over the body fork length as the independent variable. This study updates and expands previous conversions with new information.