406 
Fishery Bulletin 115(3) 
tion of reproductive potential could be even lower than 
expected because in this species, females that would 
skip spawning are primarily young individuals. Macchi 
et al. (2006, 2013) suggested that young (<5 years old) 
female Argentine hake produce eggs of poorer quality 
than eggs spawned by older females. In addition, it 
was reported that the extent of the spawning season 
in young females of this species is shorter than that in 
old individuals (>5 years old), and a lower number of 
spawning events occur during the reproductive season 
(Macchi et al., 2004). Therefore, it is possible that the 
recruitment success of this stock depends mainly on 
“big, old, fat, fecund female fish” (BOFFFF hypothesis, 
Berkeley et al., 2004) rather than on young spawners, 
as was suggested for many species, including the deep- 
water hake ( Merluccius paradoxus ) in southern Africa 
(Field et al., 2008). 
Acknowledgments 
We wish to thank to the technical staff of the Hake As- 
sessment Group of the INIDEP for age determination. 
We wish to express our gratitude for the corrections 
made by reviewers that greatly improved the manu- 
script. This work was supported by the INIDEP, Con- 
sejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientfficas y Tecnicas 
(CONICET; PIP 112 201201 00047), and Fondo para 
la Investigation Cientifica y Tecnologica (FONCyT; 
PICT-2013-1484). This article is INIDEP contribution 
no. 2052. 
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