“…Growth performance index for tub gurnard was significantly correlated with latitude (r = .64, n = 14, L 50 values for male and female tub gurnard were correlated with latitude (♂, r = .71, n = 9, p = .051; ♀, r = .77, n = 9, p = .023) with L 50 values increasing with increasing latitude. Latitudinal variations in growth and maturity have been reported for a number of marine species, for example Atlantic cod Gadus morhua (Brander, 2005), European hake Merluccius merluccius (Ragonese, Vitale, Mazzola, Pagliarino, & Bianchini, 2012), English sole Pleuronectes vetulus (Sampson & Al-Jufaily, 1999), European plaice Pleuronectes platessa (Bromley, 2000), and yellowfin tuna Thunnus albacares (Zhu, Xu, Dai, & Liu, 2011) and was also reported for red gurnard C. cuculus by Marriott et al (2010). The general patterns observed are for more northerly stocks to exhibit decreased growth rates and an increase in size at first maturity due to differences in growth opportunity related to changes in thermal regime, and the length of the growing season, with latitude.…”