Report produced by Community Conch for: Bahamas Department of Marine Resources
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Gonad tissues were sampled for evaluation of maturity in queen conch near Waderick Wells, Exuma Cays in July 2011, and near Sandy Point, Great Abaco Island in late June 2012. The primary goal was to determine how sexual maturity in queen conch is related to shell lip thickness (LT) which is directly related to conch age. The quantitative results for the Exuma collections are reported in Stoner et al. (2011, 2012a) and for Abaco in Stoner et al. (2012b). Here we provide details on the methods used to process the gonad samples, and example photographs for tissues observed from the two locations. The photographs were provided by Dr. Nancy Brown-Peterson (University of Southern Mississippi, Ocean Springs, MS) who made the histological analyses. Also, the gonads of two male and two female queen conch collected near Sandy Point were sampled at three locations within each gonad, near the middle, and at the anterior and posterior ends of each organ to confirm that the routine sampling site for histology in the middle of the gonad provides an accurate representation of the conch's reproductive status. The results of that analysis are provided below.