826 



Fishery Bulletin 100(4) 



 Female 



n =379 

 SMale 



n =329 

 Dsex unknown 



n =61 



I I I I I I 



75 95 115 135 155 175 195 215 235 255 275 



115 135 155 175 195 215 235 255 275 

 Lower jaw fork length (cm) 



Figure 5 



The size-frequency distribution by 5-cm intervals (A) and the 

 proportions (B) of female and male swordfish collected from 

 Tungkang, Nanfangao, and Shinkang fish markets, September 

 1997 to March 1999. 



on the ranked results of r~ to test the significance of the 

 goodness-of-fit comparisons between the two growth func- 

 tions (Chen et al., 1992). Friedman's test statistic x~r was 

 calculated with a correction for tied ranks (Zar, 1999). The 

 association of rank ordering of r'^ values between the two 

 growth functions was measured nonparametrically by us- 

 ing the Kendall coefficient of concordance (Kendall, 1962). 



Results 



Of the 685 anal fin rays sampled, 627 (334 females and 293 

 males) were aged successfully. The average percent error 

 (APE) was 5.18% (5.09% for females and 5.29% for males) 

 and the coefficient of variation (CV) was 8.50%- (8.28% for 

 female and 8.76% for males). The LJFL of the aged fish 

 ranged from 83.4 to 246.6 cm for the females and from 

 83.3 to 206 cm for the males. The remaining 58 fin rays 



were considered unreadable mostly because the opaque- 

 translution zonation was so unclear that annuli could not 

 be defined (32 specimens); 7 specimens were unreadable 

 because of the existence of multiple bands, which made 

 the identification of annuli difficult or resulted in aging 

 discrepancies between readings and readers; and 19 speci- 

 mens were unreadable because of both the above factors. 



For all the 769 swordfish with LJFL measured, indi- 

 viduals ranged from 83.4 to 290 cm for females and 78 to 

 206.6 cm for males (Fig. 5A). The proportion of the females 

 (Fig. 5B) varied at sizes less than 195 cm, then increased 

 to 100% at 210 cm and thereafter. 



The relationship between LJFL and round weight for 

 227 specimens (sexes pooled) is shown in Figure 6; AN- 

 COVA revealed no differences between males and females 

 (P>0.05). The LJFL-EFL (eye fork length) conversion 

 equation is LJFL = 1.0647EFL + 7.7911, with df = 563 

 and r'-=0.99. 



