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Fishery Bulletin 93(4). 1995 



Otolith analysis 



The extrusion check radius in S. goodei otoliths was 

 significantly larger than that of other Sebastes spp. 

 (S. goodei mean=14.84 u, SD=0.577; other Sebastes 

 spp. mean=12.03 u, SD=0.869; £=19.29, df=89, 

 P=0.0001) (Fig. 2). In addition, "strong" patterns were 

 observed in the majority of S. goodei specimens, 

 Which provided confirmation of the initial pigment- 

 based identifications but which occurred in only a small 

 minority of other Sebastes spp. (Table 6). The extru- 

 sion check radius of the other Sebastes spp. otoliths 

 with "strong" patterns ranged from 11.6 to 12.4 u, which 

 was much smaller than the extrusion check radius 

 range of 13.7 to 16.5 p observed for S. goodei. 



An exponential model provided a good fit for SL 

 versus total otolith radius with no discernible pat- 

 tern in the residuals (r 2 =0.933)(Fig. 3), whereas a 



linear model was used to regress SL on age 

 (r 2 =0.909)(Fig. 4). The slope of the linear regression 

 indicated a growth rate of 0.135 mm-day -1 (Fig. 4). 

 The model's estimate of size at age was 5.1 mm, 

 which closely approximates the observed sizes of pre- 

 extrusion (5.0 to 5.8 mm NL) and recently extruded 



