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Allometry of Herring Mortality
Author(s) -
McGurk Michael D.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
transactions of the american fisheries society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.696
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1548-8659
pISSN - 0002-8487
DOI - 10.1577/1548-8659(1993)122<1035:aohm>2.3.co;2
Subject(s) - herring , pacific herring , clupea , atlantic herring , allometry , clupeidae , biology , fishery , ecology , fish <actinopterygii>
I calculated the relationship between instantaneous natural mortality, M (d –1 ), and dry body weight, W (μg) for herring larvae and adults using data from the scientific literature. Geometric mean mortality of adult Pacific herring Clupea pallasi (0.52·year –1 ) was about three times greater than that of adult Atlantic herring Clupea harengus (0.18·year –1 ), which may reflect greater reproductive effort per unit size by Pacific herring than by Atlantic herring. Geometric mean mortality of Pacific herring larvae (0.083·d –1 ) was 30% greater than that of Atlantic herring larvae (0.064·d –1 ), but the difference was not significant. The functional regression for Atlantic herring was log e ( M ) = –0.4924 – 0.4064·log e ( W ), and the regression for Pacific herring was log e ( M ) = 0.1553 – 0.3935·log e ( W ). The regressions provide preliminary estimates of average M of herring eggs and juveniles, life history stages for which there are few direct estimates of mortality. They also indicate that the weight exponent of instantaneous growth of herring should be greater than –0.4. Allometry of herring mortality implies that year‐class strength of herring should be positively correlated with size at recruitment.