Improving assessment of Pandalus stocks using a seasonal, size-structured assessment model with environmental variables: Part I: Model description and application

• Main Authors: Cao, Jie, Chen, Yong, Richards, R. Anne
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: NRC Research Press (a division of Canadian Science Publishing) 2016
• Subjects: Pandalus borealis
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/74203; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjfas-2016-0020

Pandalus species display the following features that make it difficult to apply traditional age-based stock assessment models: (i) difficulty of determining age in the absence of hard parts retained through the molt; (ii) sex-change in which individuals mature first as males and then transform to females; and (iii) potentially strong influence of environmental conditions on recruitment population dynamics. In this context, we propose a seasonal size-structured assessment model dedicated to stock assessment of hermaphroditic Pandalidae. The modeling framework incorporates a sub-model for changes of length at sex transformation and functions to incorporate environmental effects on recruitment dynamics. The model can be directly fitted to length-structured data, overcoming the length to age conversion problem. The model has a seasonal time step which allows it to account for seasonal variations in biological processes and fishing patterns. The model provides stock assessment outputs, such as fishing mortality and stock biomass estimates, and sex-specific abundance-at-length. The model is applied to the exploited shrimp stock of Pandalus borealis in the Gulf of Maine as an example of its utility. The model proposed in this study is flexible and generic and can be applied to many other exploited stocks. The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author.