FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 86. NO. 2 



When used in conjunction with length- 

 frequency data collected throughout the year, the 

 Atlantic cod and haddock growth curves pre- 

 sented in this report should allow accurate esti- 

 mates of the following: 1) peak hatching dates, 2) 

 the number of cohorts produced within a given 

 season, 3) intraseasonal changes in growth and 

 mortality rates of cohorts, and 4) which part of the 

 spawning curve the recruits originated from 

 (Methot 1983). In the future year-to-year com- 

 parison of deviations in these estimates could 

 lead to the construction of viable recruitment 

 models permitting the early prediction of year- 

 class strength. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



We gratefully acknowledge the technical help 

 and guidance provided by Susan Houghton with 

 the scanning electron microscope portions of this 

 paper and by Michael Pennington with the statis- 

 tical analyses. 



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