Otolith Weight as an Estimator of the Age of Seriola lalandi Valenciennes, 1833 (Carangidae), in the Southeastern Pacific
1
Magíster Ecología Sistemas Acuáticos Programme, Universidad de Antofagasta, Antofagasta 3580000, Chile
2
Faculdade de Ciências das Pescas, Universidade do Namibe, Moçâmedes 12004, Angola
3
Facultad de Recursos Naturales Renovables, Universidad Arturo Prat, Iquique 1110939, Chile
4
Instituto de Ciencias Naturales Alexander von Humboldt, Universidad de Antofagasta, Antofagasta 1270300, Chile
5
Millenium Institute of Oceanography, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción 78349, Chile
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Animals 2022, 12(13), 1640; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12131640
Received: 3 April 2022
/
Revised: 13 June 2022
/
Accepted: 24 June 2022
/
Published: 26 June 2022
(This article belongs to the Section Aquatic Animals)
Simple Summary
The healthy management of fishery resources requires the evaluation of a series of population attributes, such as mortality, fecundity, spawning biomass, recruitment and the age at which fish reach sexual maturity. All these attributes depend on the age of fish. Then, the adequate administration and management of these resources require estimators of fish age. Age is estimated by ring counts in the otoliths, which are hard and calcified structures responsible for the balance of fish; however, this is an expensive and time-consuming methodology. An alternative is the use of otolith weight due to its expected relationship with fish age. Yellowtail king fish is a valuable resource, which arrives at the Chilean northern coast in the summer (southern hemisphere). Many aspects of the biology of this fish, such as age and growth, remain unknown. In this study, we estimated the age and growth using otolith weight, which was measured from fish with a known age, and we calculated parameters explaining growth using four different models. The best model was the seasonalized von Bertalanffy growth function, which takes into account that fish do not grow at the same rate year round.
The age and growth of fish populations is a critical issue for stock assessment, population dynamics and fishery management. Spawner biomass, mortality, growth, recruitment and age at maturity can be misconstrued if the age estimator is inaccurate. Age can be estimated by annuli count, but this requires expertise and is expensive. Otolith weight (OW) is a good indicator of how long a fish has lived, because OW increases during an individual’s life. Seriola lalandi is a migratory fish and is an important resource for local fishermen in northern Chile. Aspects of its biology, i.e., age and growth, remain unknown, at least for the population annually arriving in northern Chile. Fish of a known age (n = 105; from 5.5 to 25.7 cm in FL) from yellowtail aquaculture facilities at Universidad de Antofagasta allowed us to estimate the growth rate of OW, and fish obtained from local fishermen (n = 71; from 37.9 to 109 cm in FL) allowed us to estimate the age and growth of S. lalandi from the analysis of OW, without the need for calibration. The following four models were fitted with the known ages and fork lengths: the von Bertalanffy growth function, the Gompertz and logistic models and the seasonalized von Bertalanffy growth function. The latter model showed the best adjustment (according to the Akaike information criterion) with the following parameters: L∞, 98.58 cm.; K, 0.59; t0, 0.07; ts, 0.84; and C, 0.97.
View Full-Text
▼
Show Figures
Graphical abstract
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Supplementary File 1:
ZIP-Document (ZIP, 10 KiB)
MDPI and ACS Style
Ndjamba, T.S.I.; Araya, M.; Oliva, M.E. Otolith Weight as an Estimator of the Age of Seriola lalandi Valenciennes, 1833 (Carangidae), in the Southeastern Pacific. Animals 2022, 12, 1640. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12131640
AMA Style
Ndjamba TSI, Araya M, Oliva ME. Otolith Weight as an Estimator of the Age of Seriola lalandi Valenciennes, 1833 (Carangidae), in the Southeastern Pacific. Animals. 2022; 12(13):1640. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12131640
Chicago/Turabian StyleNdjamba, Tchimanda Simeão Imbo, Miguel Araya, and Marcelo Enrique Oliva. 2022. "Otolith Weight as an Estimator of the Age of Seriola lalandi Valenciennes, 1833 (Carangidae), in the Southeastern Pacific" Animals 12, no. 13: 1640. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12131640
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
