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Fishery Bulletin 102(1) 



Figure 5 



Image of a sablefish otolith having more prominent hyaline zones than should have 

 been present. The fish was caught after eight months at liberty. A single hyaline zone 

 should have formed; however, there is a zone on the edge and one midway between 

 the dark OTC mark. 



Table 4 



Counts of the number of prominent hyaline zones versus the number of annual hyaline zones that should have been present after 

 an OTC mark. These counts are for fish recaptured more than 15 months after initial capture. Agreement between counts and 

 number of expected annual hyaline zones is shown in bold. 



Year 



Expected number 



1993 

 1994 

 1995 

 1996 



1997 



No. of prominent hyaline zones 



10 



Table 5 



Percent and number (in parentheses I of sablefish otoliths 

 with more hyaline zones than were expected, with the 

 expected number of hyaline zones (correct count), and with 

 fewer hyaline zones than were expected for each otolith type. 



Otolith type 



More 

 zones 



Expected 

 number 

 of zones 



Fewer 

 zones 



Thick 10.3% (3) 41.4%(12) 48.3% ( 14 1 



Thick, wedge (0) 40.09! (2) 60.09! (3) 



Wide 39.39! (22) 48.29! (27) 12.5% (7) 



Wide, wedge 35.29! (25) 45.19! (32) 19.79! (14) 



prominent hyaline zones as an annulus (they might have 

 considered them to be checks). In many of these otoliths, 

 there were less prominent zones that were not counted and 

 which were interpreted as checks. 



Thick type otoliths and thick, wedge subtype otoliths 

 tend to have fewer visible hyaline zones than expected 

 (Table 5). In contrast, wide type and the wide, wedge sub- 

 type otoliths are more likely to have more hyaline zones 

 than expected. The Fisher exact test yielded a significant 

 P-value of 0.001. 



Blind comparisons of reader counts 



A comparison of the counts of annual hyaline zones for each 

 reader to the expected number of annual hyaline zones 



