Abstract
Sea Urchin is not only the crucial keystone species for the coral reef restoration but also it has antimicro-bial and anti-cancer activities. This study undertaken to focus on length weight relationship, size fecun-dity distribution and the estimation of fecundity from the long-spined Sea Urchin, Diadema savignyi at the coastal water of the middle Red Sea, Saudi Arabia. A total of 633 specimen of D. savignyi has been col-lected from the coastal water of Obhur Creak during the sampling time. In each species, total length (TL) measured as a TW = 11.908 x 0.9995 (R2 = 0.8975) through the linear regression graph and digital slide callipers and, individual body weight estimated by the digital balance. The natural and fishing mor-tality 2.02/yr and 0.19/yr respectively has documented from study area. The Asymptotic length value (Lao) (cm) were estimated 7.35 where the growth coefficient (K) was 0.67 from the monthly length -frequency numeric data by using FAO FISAT II software for generating and estimating the population parameters and age. However, the recruitment pattern was observed to be increased gradually with the maximum recruitment peak between the months of September and October 2021. Therefore, the esti-mation of fecundity varied from 49,226 ova (total length 3.1 cm) to 466,133 ova (total length 6.8). As a result, analysis of the relationship between the absolute fecundity (F) and total length (TL), and between the fecundity and drained body weight (DW), revealed a linear regression model with a positive and sig-nificant relationship at p < 0.05. This is the first approach to study the detailed population dynamic of the ecologically and economically important tropical long spine sea urchin (D. savignyi) endemic to the region. However, the result so far obtained from this research would greatly be useful towards the under-standing of the detailed population structure and growth patterns that will undoubtedly help us to develop captive breeding, seed production, culture protocols, conservation strategies and isolation bioac-tive compounds of this high-valued species incommensurate with national and international perspectives.(c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).