Age and growth of hake Merluccius merluccius Linnaeus, 1758 from the Northeast Atlantic (ICES division IXa)

• Main Authors: M. ª L. Godinho, M. ª H. Afonso, C. Morgado
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1998
• Subjects: Key words; Hake; Merluccius merluccius; age; growth; otoliths; Portuguese waters; Northeast Atlantic. RESUMEN; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.496.2524; http://www.ieo.es/publicaciones/boletin/pdfs/bol17/17(3y4)255-262.pdf

The present study estimates age and growth parameters of the European hake Merluccius mer-luccius Linnaeus, 1758 from the Northeast Atlantic (ICES division IXa, Portuguese continental waters), based on otolith analysis. A total of 951 otoliths sections were examined, covering a length range of 10-80 cm, from fish taken during surveys carried out between October 1996 and July 1997. The annual ring interpretation followed the recently established standard ageing cri-teria, particularly for the first age groups. Quarterly age-length keys, for combined sexes, and the respective mean length at age were obtained. An indirect validation based on length-frequency analysis was performed using the Bhattacharya method. The estimated Von Bertalanffy growth parameters were L ∞ = 110.6 cm, k = 0.08 year–1 and t0 = –0.97 year. These values are similar to those reported by other authors for the same species.