By Emma Fass, Summer Science Writing Intern
Determining the length of a fish is much easier than determining its age. Such accurate data is valuable for species that are otherwise data-poor.
To find out how fish length might be better used in fisheries management, Quang Huynh will begin a Sea Grant-National Marine Fisheries Service Population and Ecosystems Dynamics Fellowship in August.
Scientists have previously developed equations that make the average length of the fish caught a simple function of total mortality, growth parameters, and age. Huynh will build on this work by developing models that use information from average length data. One benefit includes developing ways to differentiate between a change in mortality and a change in recruitment. The two processes help fisheries managers to estimate changing population sizes. Mortality accounts for fish that exit the population, dying by natural or fishing causes, but recruitment estimates new young fish that are maturing and entering into the reproducing part of the population. A change in one of these processes therefore affects the ability of the population to replenish itself.
Huynh plans to use real stock assessments to evaluate the accuracy of his work, and eventually he will extend the work by developing computer software with a general model that multiple fisheries can use.
By addressing these small details, Huynh sees big benefits. He says, “I want to use my studies and career to work on the science pertinent to attaining productive fisheries and global food security.”
Huynh graduated from Swarthmore College in 2010 with a major in biology and a minor in environmental studies. He also completed undergraduate coursework in mathematics and statistics at Hunter College in 2012. He is now a PhD student at Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
