184 
Fishery Bulletin 11 6(2) 
N 
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Figure 1 
Six sampling stations where young-of-the-year common pandora (Pagellus 
erythrinus ) were collected with beach seine (BS) or beam trawl (BT) from the 
shallow waters (<20 m) off the island of Gokgeada, Turkey, from June 2013 
through June 2014. 
In this study, we investigated young-of-the-year 
(YOY) age, growth rates, and back-calculated hatch¬ 
ing dates of common pandora collected from the island 
of Gokfeada, Turkey, by analyzing their otolith micro¬ 
structure. We also examined the relationships between 
otolith morphometric measurements (length, width, 
and radius) and fish total length. 
Materials and methods 
During the daytime, YOY common pandora were col¬ 
lected with a beach seine and beam trawl from 6 sites 
in shallow waters (<20 m) off Gokgeada, Turkey (Fig. 
1). Samples were taken from June 2013 through June 
2014. Beam trawling speed was 2-3 kt. The beach 
seine hauls were made parallel to the shore. 
Total length of common pandora was measured to 
the nearest 1 mm, and total weight was measured with 
a digital balance with precision to 0.01 g. A total of 
261 pairs of sagittal otoliths were removed, cleaned, 
and placed in clean, labeled vials. One otolith of the 
sagittal pair was randomly selected and subsequently 
embedded in epoxy resin, mounted on a glass slide, and 
ground to expose the core (Miller and Storck, 1982; Se- 
cor et al. 1 ; Jones, 1992; Hayes, 1995). 
1 Secor, D. H., J. M. Dean, and E. H. Laban. 1991. Manual 
for otolith removal and preparation for microstructural ex¬ 
amination. Belle W. Baruch Inst. Mar. Biol. Coast. Res., 
Tech. Publ. 1991-01, 55 p. [Available from Belle W. Baruch 
Inst. Mar. Coast. Sci., Univ. South Carolina, Columbia, SC 
29208.1 
Otolith daily growth rings were counted from the core 
to the outer edge under a light microscope at magnifica¬ 
tions of 40x and lOOx (Fig. 2). The number of daily in¬ 
crements between right and left otoliths were compared 
with a paired Atest. Two readers independently counted 
the daily rings without prior knowledge of fish length, 
and, when counts differed from each other by more than 
10%, these otoliths were not included in the study. 
Estimates of the precision of daily growth ring counts 
between readers were determined by using the aver¬ 
age percentage error (APE) of Beamish and Fournier 
(1981) and coefficient of variation (CY) (Chang, 1982). 
It was assumed that growth increments in the sagit¬ 
tal otoliths are formed daily. Daily ring formation has 
not been validated for common pandora; however, it has 
been validated for many fish species (Pannella, 1971; 
Campana and Neilson, 1985). The slope of the regres¬ 
sion analysis of the TL and the number of otolith daily 
growth rings was used to estimate the overall YOY 
growth rates. Daily growth rates for the capture date 
of each cohort (except when the number of samples (n) 
was <5, see Table 3) also were estimated by fitting a 
linear model. The differences in slopes were compared 
by using an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to iden¬ 
tify the significant differences in daily growth for each 
cohort. 
Otolith morphometric measurements (otolith length 
[OL], width [OW], and radius [OR]) were measured to 
the nearest 0.001 mm by using QCapture Pro 2 imaging 
2 Mention of trade names or commercial companies is for iden¬ 
tification purposes only and does not imply endorsement by 
the National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. 
