Abstract:

Fish fecundity is one of the most relevant parameters for the estimation of the reproductivepotential of fish stocks, used to assess the stock status to guarantee sustainable fisheries management.Fecundity is the number of matured eggs that each female fish can spawn each year. The stereologicalmethod is the most accurate technique to estimate fecundity using histological images of fish ovaries,in which matured oocytes must be measured and counted. A new segmentation technique, namedthe multi-scale Canny filter (MSCF), is proposed to recognize the boundaries of cells (oocytes), basedon the Canny edge detector. Our results show the superior performance of MSCF on five fish speciescompared to five other state-of-the-art segmentation methods. It provides the highest F1 score in fourout of five fish species, with values between 70% and 80%, and the highest percentage of correctlyrecognized cells, between 52% and 64%. This type of research aids in the promotion of sustainablefisheries management and conservation efforts, decreases research’s environmental impact and givesimportant insights into the health of fish populations and marine ecosystems.