FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 83, NO. 4 



not until after the usual peak in plankton abundance 

 (Thayer et al. 1974) and increases in water temper- 

 ature that growth rates accelerate and persist at a 

 high level through the summer (=1.0%/d from April 

 to August, estimated from figure 3 of Weinstein and 

 Walters 1981). 



Within the same cohort, older fish had statistically 

 larger back-calculated sizes at each age than did 

 younger fish (Tkble 2). One explanation is that size- 

 selective mortality (eg., predation, Bailey 1984) 

 favors survival of faster growing larvae and that the 

 apparent growth rate depends on the size (and age) 

 of larvae on which it is calculated. Alternatively, the 

 two groups may have been spawned in different loca- 

 tions and experienced different environmental con- 

 ditions that could affect growth. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



We thank Mary Boyd for preparing and reading 

 the otoliths and John Merriner, William Nicholson, 

 and William Schaaf for their critical reviews of 

 earlier drafts of this manuscript. We also thank the 

 many participants on the 1 1 cruises of the RV John 

 de Wolf II. This research was supported by a 

 cooperative agreement between the National Marine 

 Fisheries Service, NOAA, and the U.S. Department 

 of Energy. 



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