Proceedings of the Summer Flounder Aging Workshop. Held in Woods Hole,Massachusetts on February 1-2, 1999

摘要

A workshop to review summer founder aging techniques was conducted at theNational Marine Fisheries Service's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, on 1 and 2 February 1999. The workshop convened to address: (1) The poor results of comparative readings from a 1997 scale sample exchange between age readers at the NEFSC and North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries (NCDMF);and (2) Concerns over aging accuracy expressed in recent stock assessments and in a review of those assessments by the National Research Council. The workshop identified three factors which contributed to the poor results of comparative readings. The majority of age determination disagreements were related to different age-reading conventions used by each agency with regard to the marginal increment (i.e., growth beyond the last annulus) on the scales. Workshop participants concluded that future exchanges should occur on a regular basis to ensure uniformity of aging conventions and age interpretations. Additionally, it was agreed that analysis of samples and/or data for young-of-the year summer flounder (possibly achieved by the state or university researchers) might resolve uncertainties regarding first-annulus location.