Age and Growth of Atlantic Sturgeon in the New York Bight

Abstract

Accurate estimates of age and growth of fishes are important in the management and conservation of species and for the development of modeling approaches. Assessments of endangered or rare species typically are limited by poor or inadequate data owing to low abundance, unrepresentative sampling, and/or restrictions on sampling. Atlantic Sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus, which occurs along the east coast of North America, has five distinct population segments (DPSs) listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The New York Bight (NYB) DPS is listed as endangered and represents the largest DPS in the United States. Coastal trawl surveys from 2005 to 2012 were used to evaluate the current age structure of the NYB DPS. A total of 21 year‐classes (mean age = 8.89 years, n = 742 fish) were observed. Age data for the NYB DPS were combined with other available age estimates from multiple research laboratories and sources (n = 2,774) in the Hudson River and Delaware River as well from the coastal regions of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware from 1975 to 2012. Collectively, the combined data set captured much of the age range of the species, minimizing age biases and resulting in improved von Bertalanffy parameter estimates (L∞ = 278.87, K = 0.057, t0 = −1.27) with high overall model fit (r2 = 0.87). We assessed the effects of individual data sets through a series of leave‐one‐out bootstrap routines that evaluated the influence of each data set on growth parameter estimates. The parameter estimates of the von Bertalanffy growth function were influenced by sampling location and/or researcher effects. Despite these differences, the combined data set approach used here represents the most comprehensive study on the age‐and‐growth relationship of Atlantic Sturgeon and provides parameter estimates for the development of population dynamics models and valuable information for future management. Received February 23, 2015; accepted September 24, 2015

Age and Growth of Juvenile Atlantic Sturgeon in the Lower Hudson River

“…() and is under the 5% level, as has been observed in other Atlantic Sturgeon aging studies (4.8% in Stevenson and Secor ; 3;.78% in Dunton et al. ). Reported age agreement between readers varies among sturgeon species (Rien and Beamesderfer ; Morrow et al.…”

“…The Atlantic Sturgeon of the Hudson River are part of the New York Bight Distinct Population Segment (Dunton et al. ). Given the long history of data collection from the Atlantic Sturgeon fishery in the Hudson River, it has one of the only two adult spawning population estimates along the East Coast, at roughly 850 adults (ASSRT ; Kahnle et al.…”

Modeling Growth: Consequences from Selecting Samples by Size

“…; Gervelis and Natanson ; Dunton et al. ). Studies would be improved if authors routinely documented potential size biases of their samples with the same care given to the methods used to age specimens.…”

Informing conservation strategies for the endangered Atlantic sturgeon using acoustic telemetry and multi‐state mark–recapture models

“…Tagged sturgeon ranged from 57 to 181 cm fork length at time of release, corresponding to ages 3–24 (Dunton et al . ). Genetic analysis of fin clips revealed that 77% of tagged fish were of Hudson River origin and 87·7% were of New York Bight Distinct Population Segment origin (O'Leary et al .…”