Marine - Species - White Shrimp

Abundance of Species

DNR surveys indicate that white shrimp stocks were below average in 2013, due to excessive rainfall and, possibly, unfavorable wind conditions which yielded less than ideal recruitment of small shrimp. Stocks should improve if subsequent weather is favorable. Conditions in the 1990s were more conducive to good shrimp production, with adequate rainfall in most years, whereas extreme weather such as drought or rain deluge conditions have been more prevalent in the past decade. Data were collected from DNR'sCrustacean and SCECAP surveys. A negative value indicates that the catch per unit effort (CPUE) of shrimp was lower than the 10 year mean, while a positive value indicates that the CPUE was higher than the 10 year mean.

Additional Graph Information

Graphs of abundance show relative annual abundance in South Carolina waters based on surveys conducted by the SC Department of Natural Resources.

Abundance is presented relative to the average of the 10 most recent years. Unlike graphs of the recreational and commercial fisheries catch, the abundance graphs use survey data that have been standardized to allow direct comparison among years.

The horizontal dotted lines above or below the "10 year average" represent one "standard deviation" unit, which is a measure of how variable the annual data are around the 10-year average. In general, the area between one standard deviation above the mean and one standard deviation below the average includes approximately 68% of the values. Approximately 95% percent of observations in the data set are found within two standard deviations of the average.