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Improvement of an Esocid Bioenergetics Model for Juvenile Fish
Author(s) -
Schoenebeck Casey W.,
Chipps Steven R.,
Brown Michael L.
Publication year - 2008
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/t07-229.1
Subject(s) - pike , bioenergetics , esox , statistics , juvenile , mathematics , regression , fish <actinopterygii> , regression analysis , approximation error , food consumption , consumption (sociology) , environmental science , fishery , ecology , biology , economics , agricultural economics , mitochondrion , microbiology and biotechnology , social science , sociology
Feeding rate and water temperature are known to influence the accuracy of fish bioenergetics models. In an effort to improve the accuracy of a juvenile esocid bioenergetics model, we used a regression‐based approach to develop a corrective equation that accounted for the prediction error associated with variable feeding rates and water temperatures. The regression model explained 58% of the variability in the consumption rate prediction error for age‐0 tiger muskellunge (northern pike Esox lucius × muskellunge E. masquinongy ) and included the following variables: Initial body weight (g), water temperature (°C), and relative growth rate (cal·g −1 ·d −1 ). The corrected model accurately predicted observed food consumption and had lower prediction error (mean error = 7%) than the uncorrected model (mean error = 43%). Moreover, the differences between the observed and modeled estimates of cumulative food consumption were significantly greater than zero for the uncorrected model while those between the observed and adjusted model estimates of food consumption were not, indicating that the corrective equation provided a significant improvement in model accuracy. We recommend using the corrective equation to adjust consumption estimates for juvenile tiger muskellunge when using the esocid bioenergetics model. Further work is needed to identify the physiological mechanisms responsible for consumption‐dependent error in fish bioenergetics models.