Determination of length-length and length-weight relationships and meat content of freshwater crab (Potamon sp.) in Hedi stream (Elazığ)

SUMMARY Determination of length-length and length-weight relationships and meat content of freshwater crab (Potamon sp.) in Hedi stream (Elazığ) All over the world as well as in Turkey, although the importance of marine crabs is recognized as an important fishery product the importance of freshwater crabs has been ignored for many years. For example, besides the distribution of freshwater crabs is widely in natural water of Turkey, quite a few studies have been carried out on the exact number of species, distribution of species in the country, some biological characteristics of population such as the amount of meat they have, length - length and length - weight relationships. Therefore, in this master thesis, it was aimed to determine the length-length, length-weight relationships and meat amounts of freshwater crab (Potamon sp.) in Hedi Stream (Elazığ). In addition, sex ratio and the condition factor of crabs were also determined. In addition, results showed that the sex ratio of male crabs was higher than that of female (38.85% female, 61.15% male). Results showed that female crabs in the same length group (2.5-5.5 cm) had significantly longer abdominal length and abdominal width than males, but male crabs had statistically significant differences (P <0.001) in carapace width, claw propodite length, claw propodiic width and claw propodite height. On the other hand, regression analyzes showed that there was a linear relationship between carapace length and abdomen length in both male and female crabs (r2female= 0.8617; r2male= 0.8654). Moreover, findings showed that the relationship between carapace length and claw propodite length in male crabs was more linear than that observed in female carapace length and claw propodite length (r2female= 0.73; r2male= 0.90). The findings also showed that although male-crabs showed a relatively positive allometric increase (b= 3.04) in weight compared to carapace length, females had negative allometry (b= 2.58). Regression analysis showed that there was no linear relationship between carapace length and meat amount (abdomen+claw) in both female and male crabs (r2female= 0.01; r2male= 0.05). Meat amount in males constituted 11.29% of the body weight and 9.57% in females. The condition factor was 59.35 for males and 53.33 for females. In conclusion, the findings obtained in this study will provide a database for sex ratio, length-length and length-weight relationships, condition factor and meat contents of freshwater crab in Hedi Stream in the management of freshwater crab living in the population. Key words: Aquaculture, decapod, morphometry, regression analysis, condition factor