Growth and maturation of haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) in Icelandic waters

• Main Authors: Lorna Taylor, Gunnar Stefánsson
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1999
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.624.3613; http://journal.nafo.int/J25/taylor.pdf

Growth and maturation of haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), in Icelandic waters have shown considerable spatial and temporal variation in the past several decades. After 1988 haddock have matured much earlier than in earlier decades and haddock in some areas appear to mature young and also show stunted growth. The paper compares possible reasons for this phenomenon and evaluates different models of the growth-maturation proc-ess through the use of otolith radii and length-at-age as well as biological samples from groundfish surveys and commercial catches. It is found that there is considerable spatial and temporal variation in growth and maturity. Some of the variability may be due to some form of competition among year-classes whereas there are also indications of a link be-tween growth and maturation in certain areas. Key words: age determination, growth, haddock, Iceland area, maturity