Spatiotemporal variation in maturation: a case study with American plaice ( Hippoglossoides platessoides ) on the Grand Bank off Newfoundland

Fisheries management usually does not explicitly account for spatial variation in life history traits within populations. However, for some stocks this spatial variation may be substantial. We develop a spatiotemporal generalized linear model and fit the model to a long time series of maturation dat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
Main Authors: Zheng, Nan, Robertson, Matthew, Cadigan, Noel, Zhang, Fan, Morgan, Joanne, Wheel, Laura
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Canadian Science Publishing 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2020-0017
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/full-xml/10.1139/cjfas-2020-0017
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/cjfas-2020-0017
Description
Summary:Fisheries management usually does not explicitly account for spatial variation in life history traits within populations. However, for some stocks this spatial variation may be substantial. We develop a spatiotemporal generalized linear model and fit the model to a long time series of maturation data for American plaice (Hippoglossoides platessoides) on the Grand Bank off Newfoundland and Labrador. The spatiotemporal correlation structure improves estimation of small-scale spatiotemporal variation in maturity across locations and times with limited or few samples. We test how American plaice maturity varies at three different spatial resolutions. We find improvements in model fit when decreasing spatial scales for higher spatial resolution due to high levels of spatial heterogeneity in American plaice maturity at age and size. Modeling variation in life history traits at the appropriate spatial and temporal scales is necessary for understanding population dynamics and developing appropriate fisheries management strategies.