Life history characteristics of commercially important groundfish species off California, Oregon and Washington

This report contains a detailed compilation of life history information for 15 commercially important groundfish species that are caught off the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington. The compilation was initially developed to obtain parameter estimates needed to conduct a modeling study on the long-term effects of mesh size regulations on the west coast trawl fishery. However, the information contained herein may be useful for a number of other types of investigations. Information on stock-recruitment relationships of several of the species was not available from any source, so we developed our own parameter estimates. Included in the compilation are parameter estimates for equations relating fish length to age, maturity, fecundity, and weight. Estimates of instantaneous natural mortality rates and stockrecruitment curve parameters are also provided. The species we considered in this review are: widow rockfish (Sebastes entomelas), yellowtail rockfish (Sebastes flavidus), canary rockfish (Sebastes pinniger), chilipepper (Sebastes goodei), bocaccio (Sebastes paucispinis), Pacific ocean perch (Sebastes alutus), lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus), sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria), Dover sole (Microstomus pacificus), petrale sole (Eopsetta jordani), English sole (Parophrys vetulus), rex sole (Glyptocephalus zachirus), arrowtooth flounder (Atheresthes stomias), shortspine thorneyhead (Sebastolobus alascanus), and longspined thorneyhead (Sebastolobus altivelis). THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK