Estimating attraction areas and effective fishing areas for Chilean lemon crab (Cancer porteri) using traps

The applicability of a method, based on varing distance between traps, for estimating attraction area (A_at) and effective fishing area (A_ef), for Cancer porteri caught with experimental traps, was tested. Based on fishing experiments, where lines of traps were set with different spacing between them, the minimum distance at which A_at of adjacent traps did not overlap was estimated. This provided an estimate of A_at of 9348 m²/trap. To estimate A_ef, an exponential decay function for the probability of capture within the A_at was assumed; A_ef was estimated at 577 m²/trap, similar to values estimated for other shallow water crustaceans using SCUBA for calibration. This is inferior to estimates calibrated with underwater photography for crustaceans at greater depths.