The Standard Deviation Structure as a New Approach to Growth Analysis in Weight and Length Data of Farmed Lutjanus guttatus

Abstract

In the present study, size-at-age data (length and weight) of marine cage-reared spotted rose snapper Lutjanus guttatus were analyzed under four different variance assumptions (observed, constant, depensatory, and compensatory variances) to analyze the robustness of selecting the right standard deviation structure to parametrize the von Bertalanffy, Logistic, and Gompertz models. The selection of the best model and variance criteria was obtained based on the Bayesian information criterion (BIC). According to the BIC results, the observed variance in the present study was the best way to parametrize the three abovementioned growth models, and the Gompertz model best represented the length and weight growth curves. Based on these results, using the observed error structure to calculate the growth parameters in multi-model inference analyses is recommended.