Abstract

A regular seasonal pattern of periodicity was detected in monthly catch data for Dosidicus gigas during the most recent period of high abundance of the species off Chile. Monthly catch data covering from 2002 to 2005 were grouped into three large zones, and the trend of the time series was removed by using loess smoother. The residuals between the original and the loess trend curve were computed and analyzed using autocorrelation and cross-correlation at different lags, and a trigonometric model was fitted to detect seasonal oscillation. A coherent pattern in the short-term monthly residuals was observed in the three time series, revealing a similar underlying process in the catch data, with a six-month cycle. We postulate that the seasonal and interannual fluctuations observed in the catch records could be related to the reproductive success of the species through the average occurrence of two reproductive cycles per year, and hence the generation of two cohorts per year.