New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts

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Maximum likelihood estimation of growth and growth variability from tagging data

R. I. C. C. FRANCIS

Fisheries Research Centre
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries
P.O. Box 297, Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract A maximum likelihood approach is described for the analysis of growth increment data derived from tagging experiments. As well as describing mean growth this approach allows the separate estimation of measurement error and growth variability, and uses mixture theory to provide an objective way of dealing with outliers. The method is illustrated using data for Pacific bonito (Sarda chiliensis) and the growth variability model is compared to other published models. The difference between growth curves derived from tagging and age-length data is emphasised and new parameters are given for the von Bertalanffy curve that have better statistical properties, and represent better the growth information in tagging data, than do the conventional parameters.

Keywords growth; growth variability; tagging; maximum likelihood; mixture theory; Sarda chiliensis; von Bertalanffy curve Received 16 March 1987; accepted 6 May 1987

New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 1988, Vol. 22 : 42-51 Crown copyright 1988 Received 16 March 1987; accepted 6 May 1987

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (753K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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