Size at Maturity for Northwest Atlantic Redfishes (Sebastes)

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Abstract
Morphological differences in Northwest Atlantic redfishes (Sebastes) are recognized but their biology is relatively unknown, due to the confusion associated with redfish systematics in past decades. For a redfish reproductive biology study we utilized historical sex and maturity data collected between 1957 and 1969. We applied the logistic model to estimate the size at maturity from 4501 S. marinus and 43 988 beaked redfishes (S. mentella and S. fasciatus combined) covering the whole Northwest Atlantic. The sizes at maturity for female redfishes were significantly larger than that of males for both S. marinus and beaked redfishes. The size at maturity in female S. marinus was significantly larger than that of beaked redfishes whereas in males there was no significant difference between groups. A geographic cline in size at maturity was noted in beaked redfishes, with a decreasing trend for S. mentella from Baffin Bay southward to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and for S. fasciatus from the Grand Bank to the Nova Scotian Shelf.