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Age, growth, and mortality of bonefish, Albula vulpes, from the waters of the Florida Keys

R. Crabtree,C. W. Harnden,D. Snodgrass,C. Stevens

Published 1997 in Oceanographic Literature Review

ABSTRACT

—We exam ined 528 bonefish rang ing from 21 to 702 mm FL col­ lected in South F lo rida w ate rs from 1989 to 1995-Ages of451bonefish rang­ ing from 228 to 702 m m FL w ere e sti­ m a te d from th in -sec tio n ed o to lith s (sagittae). Exam ination of OTC-marked otoliths from five fish held in a pond in the F lorida Keys for periods ranging from 14 to 29 m onths suggested th a t a single annu lu s w as form ed each year. M a rg in a lin c re m e n t a n a ly s is a lso show ed th a t a s in g le a n n u lu s w as formed each year during M arch-June. Bonefish reach a m axim um age of a t leas t 19 years. G rowth o f th e bonefish in our study w as rap id u n til an age of about six years and th en slowed con­ siderably. The von B ertalanffy grow th equation for fem ales w as FL=680.9(1g ( 0 .2 7 9 ( ^ 6 * 0 . 9 3 4 ) ) ) a n d f Q r m & l e g w a g FL=670.7(l-e(-°-242(̂ e+1-318|)). The over­ all g row th m odels for m ales and fe­ m ales w ere significantly different, bu t estim ates of individual grow th param ­ e te rs L m, K, and f0 w ere not. Predicted leng ths of fem ales w ere g rea te r th an those of m ales for all ages g rea te r th an 1 year. Catch-curve estim ates of in s tan ­ taneous ra tes of to tal m ortality (Z) were 0.21 (95% confidence in te rva l 0 .1670.303) for fem ales and 0.25 (95% confi­ dence in te rva l 0.098-0.406) for males. Em pirically derived estim ates of n a tu ­ ra l m ortality were sim ilar to to ta l m or­ ta lity estim ates, suggesting th a t fish­ ing m ortality is low. M anuscrip t accepted 19 Jan u a ry 1996. F ishery B ulletin 94:442-451 (1996). Age, growth, and mortality of bonefish. Albula vulpes, from the waters of the Florida Keys Roy E. Crabtree Christopher W. Harnden Derke Snodgrass Connie Stevens Florida M arine R esearch Institu te, D e p a r tm e n t o f E n v iro n m en ta l P ro tection , ) 0 0 E igh th A v e n u e SE, St. P e te rsb u rg , F lorida 3 3 7 0 1 -5 0 9 5 Bonefish, A lbula vulpes, are moderate-size elopomorph fish th a t fre­ quent coastal and inshore w aters of tro p ica l se as w orldw ide. In th e w estern Atlantic, bonefish regularly occur in th e F lo rid a K eys, th e B aham a Islands, and throughout th e C aribbean Sea (H ildebrand , 1963). In m any areas of the species’ range, including th e w aters off the Florida Keys, bonefish are the ba ­ sis of economically im portan t rec­ reational fisheries. Bonefish are re ­ nowned by anglers for the ir w ari­ ness and fighting abilities and are often caught in w ater as shallow as 0.3 m. In the Florida Keys, fishing for bonefish is a year-round activ­ i ty a n d p rov ides a n im p o r ta n t source of income for professional fishing guides. The commercial sale of bonefish in Florida is prohibited; th e lim its placed upon the recre­ ational fishery for bonefish are a bag lim it of one fish per angler per day and a m inim um fish size of 457 mm total length. Bonefish are not considered a food fish in Florida, and most bonefish caught are released. Bonefish life history has not been adequately described. Bruger (1974) described th e age and grow th of bonefish from an exam ination of scales of 205 bonefish from South Florida w aters. He estim ated the age of th e o ldest bonefish in his study to be 12 years and suggested th a t g rea ter ages m ay be attained. His attem pt to validate annulus for­ mation on scales using the marginalincrem ent technique was inconclu­ sive, perhaps because annulus for­ m ation in scales often occurs over a prolonged period and because annuli are often closely spaced in older fish, m aking validation of scale-de­ rived ages by th e m arginal-incre­ m ent technique difficult (LowerreBarbieri e t al., 1994). In addition, B ru g e r’s sam ple sizes for m any m onths were small. Since B ruger’s work, studies on a variety of species have shown th a t scales are not reliable for ageing long-lived fishes and th a t scale-de­ rived age estim ates are typically lower th an validated estim ates de­ rived from sectioned otoliths (Beam­ ish and M cFarlane, 1983; Casselm an, 1983; Lowerre-Barbieri e t al., 1994). Ageing of bonefish w ith a validated m ethod is needed to as­ sess B ruger’s estim ates of longev­ ity. In addition, sex-specific differ­ ences in growth ra tes have not been eva lua ted and grow th-m odel p a ­ ram eters have not been estim ated for Florida bonefish. The only pub­ lished growth-model param eters for bonefish are those by M orales-Nin (1994), who used length-frequency a n a ly s e s to e s t im a te von B e r ­ talanffy grow th param eters for a sm a ll sam p le of b o n e fish from Mexico’s Pacific coast. In th is a r­ t ic le , we d e sc rib e th e age a n d Crabtree et al.: Age and growth of Albula vulpes 443 growth of bonefish from the w aters off the Florida Keys and estim ate m ortality ra tes from a sample of fish whose ages were determ ined from an exam ina­ tion of sectioned otoliths.

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