ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil Advance Access published online on February 12, 2009
ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil, doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsp007
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Combining acoustic and CUFES data for the quality control of fish-stock survey estimates
IFREMER, Rue de lÎle dYeu, BP 21105, 44311 Nantes Cedex 3, France
Correspondence to P. Petitgas: tel: +33 240 374 163; fax: +33 240 374 075; e-mail: pierre.petitgas{at}ifremer.fr.
Petitgas, P., Goarant, A., Massé, J., and Bourriau, P. 2009. Combining acoustic and CUFES data for the quality control of fish-stock survey estimates. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 000–000.Fish behaviour may cause bias in the acoustic estimates of fish stocks, which are difficult to assess using acoustic data alone. In contrast, fish eggs are passive particles that can be sampled with little avoidance. The combination of CUFES (continuous, underway, fish-egg sampler) data with acoustic sampling has the potential to cross-validate methods and address the question of relative bias. For anchovy in the Bay of Biscay, a CUFES has been used in conjunction with acoustics along the transect lines of IFREMERs spring acoustic survey since 2001. Subsurface CUFES egg concentrations were converted to vertically integrated egg abundances using a biophysical model of egg vertical distribution. Then, a procedure similar to the daily egg production method (DEPM) was applied to map an index of daily egg production. Maps of fish abundance and egg production were combined to derive a second index of daily specific fecundity over the survey area, which served as a quality-control indicator of the survey estimate. Over the series of surveys analysed, the quality-control indicator provided two warnings and in both cases the reasons for these were identified.
Keywords: abundance, acoustics, anchovy, bias, Biscay, CUFES
Received 15 August 2008; accepted 3 November 2008.