Author(s): Ukagwu JI and Deekae S

Abstract: Akor River Ibere was sampled for 24 months during September 2012 – October 2014 using the Area density method. The river was delineated into three stations for sampling purposes namely Station A, B and C. Station A is located at Obuoro, Station B is located at Elemaga while Station C is located at Itunta where the prawns were all collected from. In the three stations, females predominated over the male with overall prawn species of 4,859 individuals out of which 3302 were females and 1551 were males giving a ratio of 1:2.07. A total number of 1,239 Macrobrachium felicinum were caught out of which 370 individuals were males and 869 individuals were females giving a ratio of 1:2 which was significantly different (p<0.05) from expected ratio of 1:1, 3,620 Macrobrachium vollenhovenii samples were caught in the three stations out of which 1,187 were males and 2,433 were females giving a ratio of 1:2 which showed no significant difference (p>0.05) though a ratio of 1:1 is expected. There were significant differences in number of shrimps caught between seasons (p<0.05). There were two peaks of abundance of male shrimps. The first peak was in July - Aug 2013, the highest numbers of females were obtained in September 2013, the peak of the rainy season whiles another peak occurred in July and September 2014. The presence of both sexes of Macrobrachium in Akor River suggests that there is possibility of prawn larval production for aquaculture practice.

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