Skip to main content
Log in

A critical appraisal of marginal increment analysis for assessing temporal periodicity in band formation among tropical sharks

  • Elasmobranchs
  • Published:
Environmental Biology of Fishes Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Marginal increment ratio (MIR) analyses were conducted as part of age and growth studies on three coastal/semi-oceanic species, the smalltail shark, Carcharhinus porosus, daggernose shark, Isogomphodon oxyrhynchus and the night shark C. signatus, and two ubiquitous oceanic species, blue shark, Prionace glauca, and whitetip shark, C. longimanus, collected in equatorial areas off Brazil with the aim of establishing the interspecific temporal nature of vertebral band formation. Monthly variations in marginal bands were analyzed using mean MIR on the entire sample as the standard method for all species. Reasons for the inconclusive results regarding these species are critically appraised with respect to three main sources of bias that are associated with marginal increment analysis (MIA). Bias due to insufficient sample sizes may have hampered the analysis for I. oxyrhynchus and C. longimanus due to movements from shallow waters to seamounts for the former species and to extensive migrations for the latter. Bias due to data collection over too long a period is thought to have influenced monthly mean MIR for C. porosus and P. glauca. For the latter, individuals from different age groups lay down rings at different times, making band deposition inconsistent between individuals. Finally, bias due to births occurring over too long a period was the prevalent cause for confounding MIR values among I. oxyrhynchus and C. signatus species, whose birth period lasts several months and leads to different ages within the same cohort. Other approaches used for MIA in C. signatus and P.␣glauca led to distinct times of band formation by age-groups when compared to MIR applied on the entire sample. For the daggernose shark, delays in events related to the reproductive cycle from one year to the next were also found to confound MIR. Requirements for the use of MIR implying a band width that displays a sinusoidal cycle when temporally plotted (month or season) were not fulfilled for any of these species. The method has been of little utility for detecting the periodicity of band deposition among sharks from the tropics. This emphasizes the need for supplying information on the temporal periodicity of pair deposition based on other methods.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Amorim AF (1992) Estudo da pesca e reprodução do cação-azul Prionace glauca L. 1758, capturado no Sudeste e Sul do Brasil. D.Sc. Thesis, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro, 205 pp

  • Amorim AF, Arfelli CA, Fagundes L (1998) Pelagic elasmobranchs caught by longliners off Southern Brazil during 1974–97: an overview. Mar Freshwater Res 49:621–632

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bass AJ, D’Aubrey JD, Kitnasamy N (1973) Sharks of the east Coast of southern Africa. I. Genus Carcharhinus (Carcharhinidae). South African Association of Marine Biology Research Investment, Report 38, 100 pp

  • Beamish RJ, McFarlane GA (1983) Validation of age determination estimates: the forgotten requirement. In: Prince ED, Pulos LM (eds) Proceedings of the international workshop on age determination of oceanic pelagic fishes: tunas, billfishes, and sharks. NOAA Technical Report NMFS 8, pp 29–33

  • Brothers EB (1983) Summary of round table discussions on age validation. In: Prince ED, Pulos LM (eds) Proceedings of the international workshop on age determination of oceanic pelagic fishes: tunas, billfishes, and sharks. NOAA Technical Report NMFS 8, pp 35–44

  • Cailliet G (1990) Elasmobranch age determination and verification: an updated review. In: Pratt HL Jr, Gruber SH, Taniuchi T (eds) Elasmobranchs as living resources: advances in biology, ecology, systematics and the status of the fisheries. NOAA Technical Report NMFS 8, pp 157–165

  • Cailliet GM, Goldman KJ (2004) Age determination and validation in chondrichthyan fishes. In: Carrier J, Musick JA, Heithaus MR (eds) Biology of sharks and their relatives, chapter 14. CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, Florida pp 339–447

    Google Scholar 

  • Cailliet GM, Radke RL, Welden BA (1986) Elasmobranch age determination and verification: a review. In: Uyeno T, Arai R, Taniuchi T, Matsuura K (eds) Indo-Pacific fish biology: proceedings of the second international conference on Indo-Pacific fishes. Ichthyology Society of Japan, Tokyo, pp 345–360

    Google Scholar 

  • Campana SE (2001) Accuracy, precision and quality control in age determination, including a review of the use and abuse of age validation methods. J Fish Biol 59:197–242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carlson JK, Cortés E, Johnson AG (1999) Age and growth of the blacknose shark Carcharhinus acronotus in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Copeia 3:684–691

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Casselman JM (1983) Age and growth assessment of fish form their calcified structures techniques and tools. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Technical Report NMFS 8, pp 1–17

  • Crabtree RE, Bullock LH (1998) Agem growth and reproduction of the black grouper Mycteroperca bonaci, in Florida waters. Fish Bull 96:735–753

    Google Scholar 

  • Hazin FH, Lucena F, Souza TSL, Boeckman C, Broadhurst M, Menni R (2000) Maturation of the night shark, Carcharhinus signatus, in the south-western equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Bull Mar Sci 66:173–185

    Google Scholar 

  • Lessa R, Santana FM (1998) Age determination and growth of the smalltail shark Carcharhinus porosus from northern Brazil. Mar Freshwater Res 49:705–711

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lessa R, Santana FM, Paglerani R (1999a) Age, growth and stock structure of the oceanic whitetip shark, Carcharhinus longimanus, from the southwestern Equatorial Atlantic. Fish Res 42:21–30

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lessa R, Santana FM, Menni R, Almeida Z (1999b). Population structure and reprodutive biology of the smalltail shark (Carcharhinus porosus) off Maranhão. Mar Freshwater Res 50:383–388

    Google Scholar 

  • Lessa R, Batista V, Almeida Z (1999c) Occurrence and biology of the daggernose shark Isogomphodon oxyrhynchus (Chondrichthyes: Carcharhinidae) off the Maranhão Coast (Brazil). Bull Mar Sci 64:115–128

    Google Scholar 

  • Lessa RP, Paglerani R, Santana F (1999d) Morphometry and reproductive biology of Carcharhinus longimanus from southwestern equatorial Atlantic. Cybium (Paris, França) 23(4):353–368

    Google Scholar 

  • Lessa R, Santana FM, Batista V, Almeida Z (2000) Age and growth of the daggernose shark, Isogomphodon oxyrhynchus, from northern Brazil. Mar Freshwater Res 51:339–347

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lessa R, Santana FM, Hazin FH (2004) Age and growth of the blue shark Prionace glauca (Linnaeus, 1758) off northeastern Brazil. Fish Res 66:19–30

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Natanson LJ, Casey JG, Kohler NE (1995) Age and growth estimates for the dusky shark, Carcharhinus obscurus, in the western North Atlantic Ocean. Fish Bull 93:116–126

    Google Scholar 

  • Natanson LJ, Mello JJ, Campana SE (2002) Validated age and growth of the porbeagle shark (Lamna nasus) in the western North Atlantic Ocean. Fish Bull 100:266–278

    Google Scholar 

  • Nikolsky GV (1969) Theory of fish population dynamics. Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, 323 pp

  • Santana FM, Lessa R (2004) Age determination and growth of the night shark (Carcharhinus signatus) off the northeastern Brazilian coast. Fish Bull 102:156–167

    Google Scholar 

  • Skomal GB, Natanson LJ (2003) Age and growth of the blue shark (Prionace glauca) in the North Atlantic Ocean. Fish Bull 101:627–639

    Google Scholar 

  • Stride RK, Batista VS, Raposo LAB (1992) Pesca experimental de tubarão com redes de emalhar no litoral maranhense. São Luis, ODA/FINEP/UFMA, vol III, 160 pp

  • Vooren CM, Montealegre SQ (2004) Biologia, ecologia, pesca e identificação de estoque do tubarão azul (Prionace glauca) no Atlântico Sul. Workshop Report. IV Reunião da SBEEL, Recife, Brazil, 16 pp

  • Wilson CA, Brothers ED, Casselman JM, Smith CL, Wild A (1983) Glossary. In: Prince ED, Pulos LM (eds) Proceedings of the international workshop on age determination of oceanic pelagic fishes: tunas, billfishes, and sharks. NOAA Technical Report NMFS 8, pp 207–208

  • Wintner S, Cliff G (1999) Age and growth determination of the white shark. Carcharodon carcharias, from the east coast of South Africa. Fish Bull 97:153–159

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The “Elasmobranch Project” was funded by the Secretaria da Comissão Interministerial para os Recursos do Mar-SECIRM/UFMA from 1984 to 1989. Data were collected from 1992 to 1995 through the “ECOTUNA Project” IBAMA/UFRPE. The Ministerio do Meio Ambiente-MMA/SECIRM in the scope of the “Programa Nacional de Avaliação do Potencial Sustentável dos Recursos Vivos—REVIZEE” funded research from 1997 to 2002. We are grateful to the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico—CNPq for a Research Grant provided to the senior author (Procs: 301048/83-OC) and scholarships for students. We are indebted to Norte Pesca S/A and to the fishermen involved. Remarks by anonymous reviewers led to substantial improvements to the manuscript; we greatly appreciate their careful and constructive comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rosângela Lessa.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lessa, R., Santana, F.M. & Duarte-Neto, P. A critical appraisal of marginal increment analysis for assessing temporal periodicity in band formation among tropical sharks. Environ Biol Fish 77, 309–315 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-006-9111-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-006-9111-7

Keywords

Navigation