Population Structure of Alien Snow Crabs (Chionoecetes opilio) in the Kara Sea (Trawl and Video Sampling)

The paper presents the results from a study of the population structure of alien snow crabs Chionoecetes opilio in the western Kara Sea near the Kara Strait using two methods: Sigsby trawling and video surveillance. The towed unmanned underwater vehicle Videomodule was used to estimate the population density of crabs: 0.55 ind/m2 in 2016, and 0.17 and 0.09 ind/m2 in 2017. No differences were revealed when comparing the size structure of the crab population based on the two methods. An exception is possible underestimation of younglings with a carapace width