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ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 2005 62(5):915-924; doi:10.1016/j.icesjms.2005.03.005
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© 2005 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea

Testing the stability of the suitability coefficients from an eastern Bering Sea multispecies virtual population analysis

Jesús Jurado-Molinaa,*, Patricia A. Livingstonb and Vincent F. Galluccia

a School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington Box 503520, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
b Alaska Fisheries Science Center 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115, USA

*Correspondence to J. Jurado-Molina: tel: +1 206 526 4226; fax: +1 206 526 6723. e-mail: jjurado{at}u.washington.edu.

Suitability coefficients are important for the estimation of predation mortality in a multispecies virtual population analysis (MSVPA) and subsequent use in the multispecies forecasting model (MSFOR). Testing the assumption of the stability of the suitability coefficients is important in assessing the robustness of the predictions made with MSFOR. We used different statistical methods to partially test this assumption for the eastern Bering Sea MSVPA model with eight species, using stomach content data for the years 1985–1989. Comparison of the estimates from two different sets of stomach content data (set one with all data and set two mainly with data from 1985) suggested that the differences between the two types of estimates were much reduced when the number of predator stomachs sampled increased. In a second approach, we contrasted the residual variances of partial data sets with the results from the fit of the total data set. Results suggested a small increase (~10.8%) in the variation of the suitability coefficients. Comparison of the means of the suitability coefficients associated with each predator species suggests that only 13 of the 50 possible pairwise contrasts were significantly different ({alpha} = 0.05). In general, results suggested that the predator preferences and prey vulnerabilities remained stable over the time period studied. Therefore, MSFOR could be considered as a tool to advise fisheries managers within a multispecies context.

Keywords: Bering Sea, predation mortality, stability, suitability coefficients

Received 4 August 2004; accepted 18 March 2005.


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