STUDY ON THE POPULATION OF SARDINOPS MELANOSTICTA(T.ETS.)IN YELLOW SEA REGION

The discovery of S. melanosticta from China has brought a wideattention to the fisheries circle. Recently, the authors noticed that S. melanosticta to be two populations in the Yellow Sea region, i. e. a spawning populationand feeding population. In this paper, the population of S. melanosticta was studi-ed by means of discriminatory analysis and successive discrimination methodin biometrics. The results from calculation indicated that the specimens oftwo populations had biometrically significant difference, especially in charactersof count which plays a decisive role in population determination. The F is 116.93and rate of right is 98.65%. These figures provided a strong evidence that the S. melanosticta from Yellow Sea belongs to two different populations.