Abstract
In order to investigate the seasonal variation of watermass and fishery creatures in the adjacent sea of Naro Island, an oceanographic observation was carried out seasonally on the fishing grounds, and the sales performance data of the fisheries cooperative's joint market of Naro Island was examined by using a principal component analysis. The temperature and salinity ranged from 8.1 $^{\circ}C$ to 13.7 $^{\circ}C$ and from 33.1 psu to 34.3 psu in spring, from 14.5 $^{\circ}C$ to 24.2 $^{\circ}C$ and from 30.5 psu to 34.1 psu in summer, from 14.8 $^{\circ}C$ to 18.6 $^{\circ}C$ and from 30.1 psu to 34.0 psu in autumn, and from 4.3 $^{\circ}C$ to 10.1 $^{\circ}C$ and from 33.1 psu to 34.9 psu in winter, respectively. In winter and spring, the offshore water spread out to all sea areas of all water layers. In summer, the mixed waters covered the entire sea surface whereas the mixed water and offshore water covered the bottom. In autumn, the coastal water and mixed water appeared on the surface, but the mixed water was distributed widely on the bottom and the offshore water began to appear in the open sea. For two years from 2002 to 2003, 58 fishery creature species in total were sold in the fisheries cooperative's joint market of Naro Island. In general, the total of 50% fish were sold, and crustacea and mollusc by each 25%. Medium shrimp, whiparm octopus, blue crab, and octopus predominated. A number of species and biomass of fishery creatures were sold mostly in April and May, while they were sold the least in January and February. The seasonal sales results showed that mullet, angler, short necked clam, large shrimp, and webfoot octopus were sold mainly in spring, tonguefish, flathead, pomfret, glass eel, blue crab, whiparm octopus, and squid were sold mainly in summer, and octopus, medium shrimp, and spanish mackerel were sold mainly in autumn.
