Fig. 5

Female Nephrops norvegicus maturity stages in samples from the Farn Deeps region of the North Sea from commercial catches in February and March 2017. A revised staging scale (following Becker et al. [5]) was adopted to assess maturity stages. Only adult females were represented in these commercial catches, sexually immature females (stage 0) are therefore absent. Ovaries of berried females were staged, the proportion of berried females in each stage is shown in the upper section of each column (if present). In February, a total of 163 females were assessed, 25% of which had resorbing ovaries (stage 5b, 1b). In March, 13% of 189 females showed ovaries under full resorption (stages 5b, 1b)