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Long‐term patterns in growth of Oneida Lake walleye: a multivariate and stage‐explicit approach for applying the von Bertalanffy growth function
Author(s) -
He J. X.,
Rudstam L. G.,
Forney J. L.,
VanDeValk A. J.,
Stewart D. J.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of fish biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1095-8649
pISSN - 0022-1112
DOI - 10.1111/j.0022-1112.2005.00696.x
Subject(s) - biology , principal component analysis , multivariate statistics , annual growth % , growth function , growth model , demography , ecology , statistics , mathematics , mathematical economics , sociology , botany
Total length ( L T ) and its inter annual variation of walleye Sander vitreus from Oneida Lake, New York, based on 51 years (1950–2000) of data for ages 1 to 7 years were analysed. Growth increased over time at young ages, did not change at intermediate ages and decreased at old ages. Total length at age increased over time to age 4 or 5 years, but was stable at older ages. Principle component analysis was used to study the pattern of variations in annual L T increments among years. More than 92 and 91% of inter annual variability in growth was described by the first three principal components for males and females, respectively. The first principal component was a general indicator of annual growth at all ages, but was dominated by annual growth at intermediate ages. The second and third principal components represented contrasts among yearling L T , yearling growth and growth at older ages. Therefore, changes in the three stage‐specific parameters, yearling L T , yearling growth and asymptotic L T , explained most of the variance in observed growth. Using these three stage‐specific parameters for the von Bertalanffy growth function facilitated interpretations of growth comparisons.