An evaluation of 0-group abundance indices of Barents Sea fish stocks

• Published in: The Open Fish Science Journal
• Main Authors: Eriksen, Elena, Prozorkevich, Dmitry, Dingsør, Gjert Endre
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Bentham Science 2009
• Subjects: VDP::Agriculture and fishery disciplines: 900::Fisheries science: 920::Resource biology: 921; Barents Sea; Norway
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/109055; https://doi.org/10.2174/1874401X00902010006

The International 0-group fish survey in the Barents Sea (1965-2002) aimed to give initial indication of the recruiting year class strengths. Since 2003 the 0-group survey has been a part of a Joint Norwegian-Russian ecosystem survey of the Barents Sea, conducted by IMR (Norway) and PINRO (Russian Federation). The electronic 0-group databases were missing some data and contained errors, therefore the databases have been quality checked and corrected for the period 1980-2006. Two separate sets of 0- group indices were re-estimated, both with and without correction for capture efficiency, using a stratified sample mean approach, and 0-group indices were correlated with other appropriate abundance indices. The exclusion of errors from the database has improved our confidence in the indices and analysis. In general, the 0-group indices seem to be reliable predictors of year class strengths and are adequate to use as input in stock assessment-models and recruitment studies.