Ferreira and Russ: Age-validation and growth rate of Plectropomus leopardus 



55 



of different growth potentials can result in gross 

 overestimation of optimal fishing levels (Parma and 

 Deriso, 1990). 



The absence of marked seasonal changes in low 

 latitudes has led to the general belief that tropical 

 fishes do not form annual rings in their calcified 

 structures (Pannella, 1974). Consequently, most of 

 the studies of age determination of tropical fishes 

 have concentrated on examination of daily rings. 

 This technique, however, is time consuming and lim- 

 ited to younger ages (see Longhurst and Pauly, 1987, 

 and Beamish and McFarlane, 1987, for review). The 

 presence of annual marks in otoliths has been vali- 

 dated for an increasing number of species of tropi- 

 cal fishes (Samuel et al., 1987; Fowler, 1990; Fer- 

 reira and Russ, 1992; Lou, 1992) showing the poten- 

 tial of this technique to be used routinely in tropi- 

 cal fishery management. 



Acknowledgments 



We would like to thank P. Laycock for his assistance 

 with the otolith readings. Many thanks to Owen 

 Roberts, who kindly gave us access to his commer- 

 cial fishing samples. We thank M. Maida, P. 

 Laycock, C. Davies, M. and L. Pearce, L. Vail, A. 

 Hogget, J. St. John, and D. Zeller for help in the 

 field and in collecting the samples. We are grateful 

 to C. Davies for allowing us to use his trapping and 

 mark-recapture program to validate this study. This 

 work was supported by grants from the Brazilian 

 Ministry of Education (CAPES), Australian Re- 

 search Council (ARC), Fishing Industry Research 

 and Development Council (FIRDC), and the Great 

 Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (Augmentative). 



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