Northeast Atlantic chub mackerel (Scomber colias): growth pattern and age validation in Northern Iberian waters.

• Main Authors: Navarro, María Rosario, Landa, Jorge, Villamor, Begoña, Hernández-López, Cristina, Domínguez-Petit, Rosario
• Format: Still Image
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Pesquerías; Centro Oceanográfico de Santander; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10508/13605; http://hdl.handle.net/10261/326695

During the last years, chub mackerel has increased its abundance at its northernmost distribution limit (Northern Iberian waters), possibly influenced by oceanographic shifts, with potential impact on other important pelagic fisheries and the ecosystem. Fishery advice has been recently recommended within ICES to be performed in the near future. This study shows the growth pattern and parameters of chub mackerel in Northern Iberian waters of interest for future assessment of this population. Otolith marginal increment analyses and otolith edge nature analysis are performed to validate the periodicity of growth increments of this population. With the purpose of corroborating the growth pattern, length-frequency analyses are also performed. In addition, the consistency of the age interpretation is tested by the regularity of the otolith increments formation and with back-calculation analysis. The growth parameters obtained from direct age estimation and backcalculation are also compared between them and with those from other areas.