Fish Growth: Investigations Based on a Size-Structured Model

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Abstract
In this paper and its companion (Schnute et al. 1989, Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 46: 743–769), we present a statistical analysis of Schnute's size-structured model for exploited fish populations. Here we emphasize model parameters associated with fish growth. The model projects the growth of population biomass from the growth of individual fish. We show that this relationship between individual and global behavior is formally analogous with the kinetic theory of gases, where properties of a gas follow from the motions of individual particles. Our statistical analysis allows for error in all observed variables, and we support all analytical arguments with simple graphical techniques. We illustrate the model with tag–recapture and fishery data from an exploited lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) stock. Growth parameter estimates from the population are based on weight means and variances within the catch over the period 1956–86. These estimates agree well with estimates based on weights of individual fish released in 1982 and recaptured in 1983.

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