Schooling-by-size in the Barents Sea capelin stock

Abstract

This paper analyses the biological samples of capelin taken by the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, on annual stock assesment surveys in the Barents Sea from 1972 to 1989. The dependency between mean length of 2-year-olds and the mean age in the rest of the sample is demonstrated with the use of linear regression. The data from 1974 and 1978 are further analysed using a step wise linear regression. The variation in mean length is best explained using the mean length of the capelin the 2-year-olds are schooling with.