Growth of white anglerfish (Lophius piscatorius) tagged in the Northeast Atlantic, and a review of age studies on anglerfish

Abstract

Landa, J., Duarte, R., and Quincoces, I. 2008. Growth of white anglerfish (Lophius piscatorius) tagged in the Northeast Atlantic, and a review of age studies on anglerfish. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65: 72–80. Growth of white anglerfish was estimated from the results of a tagging study in south European waters. In all, 1326 fish, caught by bottom trawl and gillnet commercial vessels and on trawl surveys, were tagged from 1995 to 2004; 50 were recovered, and a growth rate of 13.6 cm year−1 was estimated from the four fish at liberty long enough to allow extrapolation of the growth rate to an annual period. Growth patterns were reviewed based on available studies of growth verification of white anglerfish in Atlantic waters, including another tag-recapture study, length-frequency of catches, and microstructure analysis of hard parts. The growth rate estimated from these studies showed many similarities, and an overall growth pattern was estimated: growth rate = 18.24e–0.015length. A von Bertalanffy growth curve fitted to all data yielded the parameter values L∞ = 140 cm and k = 0.11. This growth rate is faster than estimated recently using illicia for age estimation, but similar to that found in the first studies that used illicia and sectioned otoliths. Current estimates of growth based on illicia, which are used in assessing the northern European stock of white anglerfish, seem to be underestimated.

Distribution, population structure and dynamics of the black anglerfish (Lophius budegassa) (Spinola, 1987) in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea

“…In addition, since the age and growth estimates are fundamental for the stock assessment in the age structured models, it could be interesting to expand the covered size range for the age and growth estimation, including big specimens from commercial landings. In addition, in order to avoid the underestimation of growth, it seems useful to improve and validate the estimates using alternative methods to interpret age in skeleton parts (de Pontual et al, 2006;Landa et al, 2008). Indeed, the significant differences in the growth revealed by direct readings between the two sexes were not confirmed by back-calculation.…”

Movements of black and white anglerfish (Lophius budegassa and L. piscatorius) in the northeast Atlantic

“…On the other hand, the lack of genetic differences between both stocks could mean that there is no true separation between them. Information on fish life history parameters as the recent evidence of the real growth of the anglerfish obtained from tagging-recapture experiments in these stocks (Laurenson et al, 2005;Landa et al, 2008), are also useful to achieve a accurate definition of the stocks studied (Begg, 2005).…”

Early life history of the black anglerfish Lophius budegassa Spinola, 1807 in the Mediterranean Sea using otolith microstructure

“…Most of studies on biological features of these species have been carried out in the north-eastern Atlantic waters, dealing mainly with age and growth (Dupouy et al, 1986;Crozier, 1989;Duarte et al, 1997;Hislop et al, 2001;Landa et al, 2001Landa et al, , 2008Wright et al, 2002;Woodroffe et al, 2003;, reproduction (Afonso-Dias and Hislop, 1996;Duarte et al, 2001) and feeding habits (Crozier, 1985;Preciado et al, 2006). Conversely, few studies are currently available on Mediterranean populations of anglerfishes, and they are limited to Spanish (García-Rodríguez et al, 2005) and Greek waters (Tsimenidis and Ondrias, 1980).…”