Vol. 53 - Alaska Resources Library and Information Services

pheromone cues could impair males' search for females).
mating pairs males are larger than females (Powell et al.
For 97% of all
1974); insemination
of larger females by smaller males results in reduced clutch size
(egg number).
Any combination of events through natural and fishery
mortality and pollution that substantially reduce numbers of large males
at some point in time could threaten the breeding potential of the
species.
Reeves and Marasco (1980) estimated that a male-female weight
ratio of 1.7 is required for 100% copulation - this estimate based, in
part, on behavioral observation by Powell et al. (974).
Below this
value, decreasingly smaller males will have less success breeding mature
females.
This relationship portends the observations of the 1982 NMFS
survey cruise that found an unusually large number of barren female
crabs (had not extruded eggs) in a year of very low male abundance
(depressed fishery).
Whether there is or is not a relationship between
spawners and eventual recruits for this species is unclear (Reeves and
Marasco 1980).
Females carry eggs for up to eleven months as embryos develop
through naupliar stages to prezoea (MaruKawa 1933).
This protracted
developmental time makes eggs (during early cleavage) and later embryos
susceptible to long-term benthic oil pollution, and will be considered
in scenarios of oil mishaps and possible perturbations to larval populations
(see Section 8.0).
Again, gravid king crab females are aggregated
nearshore in relatively shallow water along the North Aleutian Shelf but
such distribution is poorly studied to date.
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