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Age and Growth of Sailfish (<I>Istiophorus Platypterus</I>) In

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Age and Growth of Sailfish (<I>Istiophorus Platypterus</I>) In SCTB17 Working Paper INF–BIO–1 Age and growth of sailfish (Istiophorus platypterus) in waters off eastern Taiwan Wei-Chuan Chiang, Chi-Lu Sun, Su-Zan Yeh & Wei-Cheng Su Institute of OceanographyNational Taiwan University, Taiwan Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute, Taiwan July 2004 251 Abstract—Age and growth of sailfish Age and growth of sailfish (Istiophorus platypterus) (Istiophorus platypterus) in waters off eastern Taiwan were examined from in waters off eastern Taiwan counts of growth rings on cross sections of the fourth spine of the first dorsal fin. Length and weight data and the dorsal Wei-Chuan Chiang fin spines were collected monthly at the Chi-Lu Sun fishing port of Shinkang (southeast of Taiwan) from July 1998 to August Su-Zan Yeh 1999. In total, 1166 dorsal fins were Institute of Oceanography collected, of which 1135 (97%) (699 National Taiwan University males and 436 females) were aged suc- No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road cessfully. Trends in the monthly mean Taipei, Taiwan 106 marginal increment ratio indicated E-mail address (for C. L. Sun, contact author): [email protected] that growth rings are formed once a year. Two methods were used to back- calculate the length of presumed ages, Wei-Cheng Su and growth was described by using Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute the standard von Bertalanffy growth No. 199, Ho-Ih Road function and the Richards function. Keelung, Taiwan 202 The most reasonable and conserva- tive description of growth assumes that length-at-age follows the Rich- ards function and that the relationship between spine radius and lower jaw fork length (LJFL) follows a power function. The sailfish (Istiophorus platypterus) have been made to age sailfish in the Growth differed significantly between is distributed widely in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Koto and Kodama (1962) the sexes; females grew faster and and temperate waters of the world’s estimated the growth of sailfish caught reached larger sizes than did males. The maximum sizes in our sample were oceans. According to data from longline with longlines from 1952 to 1955 in the 232 cm LJFL for female and 221 cm catches, sailfish are usually distributed East China Sea using length-frequency LJFL for male. between 30°S and 50°N in the Pacific analysis, and Alvarado-Castillo and Fé- Ocean, and highest densities are found lix-Uraga (1996, 1998) used the fourth in the warm Kuroshio Current and spine of the first dorsal fin to estimate its subsidiary currents. This species age and growth of sailfish caught from has a tendency to be found close to the 1989 to 1991 in the recreational fishery coast and near islands (Nakamura, off Mexico. However, western Pacific 1985). During the 1990s the annual sailfish have not been aged with calci- landings of sailfish off Taiwan ranged fied structures in any previous study. between 600 and 2000 metric tons, of The aging of fishes, and consequently which approximately 54% came from the determination of their growth and waters off Taitung (eastern Taiwan). mortality rates, is an integral compo- Sailfish are seasonally abundant from nent of modern fisheries science (Paul, April to October (peak abundance from 1992). Mortality and growth rates pro- May to July) and contribute substan- vide quantitative information on fish tially to the economic importance of stocks and are needed for stock assess- the eastern coast of Taiwan where this ment methods such as yield-per-recruit species is taken primarily by drift gill and cohort analysis (Powers, 1983). nets, although they are also caught by The objectives of this study were to set nets, harpoons, and as incidental estimate age and growth of sailfish by bycatch in inshore longline fisheries. counting growth rings on cross sections Age and growth of sailfish caught of the fourth spine of the first dorsal fin in recreational fisheries in the Atlan- and to determine which of the Richards tic Ocean have been studied by using function and the standard von Berta- various methods, including length- lanffy growth function best represents frequency analysis (de Sylva, 1957), growth of sailfish in waters off eastern analysis of release-recapture data (Far- ber1), and inferences from observed 1 Farber, M. I. 1981. Analysis of Atlantic Manuscript approved for publication marks on hard parts, such as spines billfish tagging data: 1954−1980 Unpubl. 22 December 2003 by Scientific Editor. (Jolley, 1974, 1977; Hedgepeth and manuscr. ICCAT workshop on billfish, June 1981. Southeast Fisheries Center Manuscript received 20 January 2004 Jolley, 1983) and otoliths (Radtke and Miami Laboratory, National Marine Fish- at NMFS Scientific Publications Office. Dean, 1981; Radtke, 1983; Prince et al., eries Service, NOAA, 75 Virginia Beach Fish. Bull. 102(2): 251–263 (2004). 1986). In contrast, very few attempts Drive, Miami, FL 33149. 252 Fishery Bulletin 102(2) Figure 1 Fishing grounds of the gillnet (cross lines) and longline (oblique lines) fish- ing boats based at Shinkang fishing port. Taiwan. This information could be used to determine the immersed in 95% ethanol for several minutes for cleaning, age composition of the catch and to assess the status of placed on disposable paper to air dry, and then stored in a sailfish in these waters by using yield-per-recruit or se- labeled plastic case for later reading. Spine sections were quential population analysis techniques. examined with a binocular dissecting microscope (model: Leica-MZ6) under transmitted light at zoom magnifica- tions of 10−20× depending on the sizes of the sections. The Materials and methods most visible one of these three sections was read twice, approximately one month apart. If the two ring counts Materials differed, the section was read again, and if the third ring count differed from the previous two ring counts, the spine Data on total length (TL), eye fork length (EFL), lower was considered unreadable and discarded. The precision jaw fork length (LJFL) (in cm), round weight (RW) (in kg) of reading was evaluated by using average percent error and the first dorsal fins of male and female sailfish were (APE) (Beamish and Fournier, 1981; Campana, 2001) and collected monthly at the fishing port of Shinkang (Fig. 1) coefficient of variation (CV) (Campana, 2001) statistics. from July 1998 to August 1999. In total, 304 TLs, 1166 Images of the cross sections were captured by using the LJFLs, 1166 RWs, and 1166 dorsal fins were collected. Image-Pro Image analysis software package (Media Cy- The dorsal fins were kept in cold storage before being bernetics, Silver Spring MD, 1997) in combination with a boiled to remove surrounding tissue and to separate the dissecting microscope equipped with a charged coupled de- fourth spines. Three cross sections (thickness 0.75 mm) vice (CCD) camera (model: Toshiba IK-630) and a Pentium were taken successively along the length of each spine II computer equipped with a 640 × 480 pixel frame grab with a low-speed “ISOMET” saw (model no. 11-1280) and card and a high-resolution (800 × 600 pixel) monitor. diamond wafering blades, at a location equivalent to 1/2 of The distance from the center of the spine section to the the maximum width of the condyle base measured above outer edge of each growth ring was measured in microns the line of maximum condyle width (Fig. 2A) (Ehrhardt with the Image-Pro software package after calibration et al., 1996; Sun et al., 2001, 2002). The sections were against an optical micrometer. The center of the spine Chiang et al.: Age and growth of Istiophorus platypterus in waters off eastern Taiwan 253 Figure 2 Schematic diagram of the fourth dorsal spine of sailfish (I. platypterus) and the location of the cross section (A), and a cross section showing the measurements taken for age determination of sailfish (B). W = maximum width of condyle base, R = radius of spine, ri = radius of ring i, d = diameter of spine, di = diameter of ring i. The vascularized core and growth rings (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) are also shown. section was estimated according to the methods of Cayré core of the spine. The number of early but missing growth and Diouf (1983) (Fig. 2B). The distances (di) were then rings was therefore estimated by the replacement method converted into radii (ri) by using the equation (Megalofo- applied to Pacific blue marlin (Makaira nigricans) by Hill et nou, 2000; Sun et al., 2001): al. (1989). This method involved first compiling ring radii statistics from younger specimens that had at least the first ri = di – (d/2), or second ring visible. Radii of the first four visible rings from samples that had missing early rings were then com- where ri = radius of the ring i; pared with the radii for these younger specimens. When di = distance from the outside edge of ring i to the the radii of at least two successive rings of the first four opposite edge of the cross section; and visible rings each fitted well within one standard deviation d = diameter of the spine. from the mean radii of each of two or more rings from the data compiled from the younger specimens, the number of False growth rings were defined according to criteria missing rings was computed as the difference between the of Berkeley and Houde (1983), Tserpes and Tsimenides ring counts for the matched radii compiled from younger (1995), and Ehrhardt et al. (1996). specimens and those for the specimen of interest. Accounting for missing early rings Validation The first several growth rings of the larger specimens may The marginal increment ratio (MIR), which was used be obscured because of the large size of the vascularized to validate the rings as annuli, was estimated for each 254 Fishery Bulletin 102(2) specimen by using the following equation (Hayashi, 1976, where Lt = the mean LJFL at age t; Prince et al., 1988; Sun et al., 2002): L∞ = the asymptotic length; t0 = the hypothetical age at length zero; MIR = (R – rn)/(rn – rn–1), k and K = the growth coefficients; and m = the fourth growth-equation parameter.
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