Using appropriate method to answer a question, and the importance of understanding the question: A response to the rebuttal by Colin et al. (2013)

摘要

We appreciate the interest of Colin et al. (2013) in our work. It is critical to understand the spatial and temporal extent of fish spawning aggregations and have a discussion that may lead to stronger policies that will protect these fishes. The rebuttal by Colin et al. however primarily focuses on our methods and suggests that their methods are more appropriate. They argue that our methods did not sample the entire aggregation but the intent of our study was to examine relative abundance over time and compare these estimates to those conducted in the 1990s using similar methodology. We aimed to estimate population densities, which are reflected in our variance estimates.