USGS ScienceSearch

Geology topics

R.M. Dorazio

Publications and source records attributed to R.M. Dorazio.

20 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Evaluation of a mark-recapture method for estimating mortality and migration rates of stratified populations

We simulated mark–recapture experiments to evaluate a method for estimating fishing mortality and migration rates of populations stratified at release and recovery. When fish released in two or more strata were recovered from different recapture strata in nearly the same proportions, conditional recapture probabilities were estimated outside the [0, 1] interval. The maximum likelihood estimates tended to be biased and imprecise when the patterns of recaptures produced extremely "flat" likelihood surfaces. Absence of bias was not guaranteed, however, in experiments where recapture rates could be estimated within the [0, 1] interval. Inadequate numbers of tag releases and recoveries also produced biased estimates, although the bias was easily detected by the high sampling variability of the estimates. A stratified tag–recapture experiment with sockeye salmon ( Oncorhynchus nerka ) was used to demonstrate procedures for analyzing data that produce biased estimates of recapture probabilities. An estimator was derived to examine the sensitivity of recapture rate estimates to assumed differences in natural and tagging mortality, tag loss, and incomplete reporting of tag recoveries.

Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences

Stocking of hatchery-reared striped bass in the Patuxent River, Maryland: Survival, relative abundance, and cost‐effectiveness

Hatchery‐reared fingerlings of striped bass Morone saxatilis were tagged, stocked, and recovered in the Patuxent River, Maryland, to estimate their survival and abundance relative to wild young of the year and to compare the costs and benefits of stocking phase‐I (35–50 mm, total length) and phase‐II (150–200 mm) fish. About 100,000 phase‐I fingerlings were tagged and released each year during midsummer 1988 and 1989. Both tagged and untagged (wild) young of the year were recovered by alongshore seining in the river through 80 d poststocking. Mortality rates of wild and hatchery‐reared young of the year were not significantly different‐about 3%/d. Wild young of the year were more abundant in 1989 than in 1988. In 1988, phase‐I fingerlings composed 56% of all young‐of‐the‐year striped bass in the river. In 1989 wild young‐of‐the‐year striped bass outnumbered hatchery‐reared fingerlings by about 11 to 1. Whether phase‐I or phase‐II stocking was more cost‐effective depended on the relative magnitudes of fingerling survival and on hatchery production costs. The range of phase‐II survival (5–50%) observed among different hatcheries and years of production was too broad to support generalizations about cost‐effectiveness, given the fivefold difference in the unit costs of phase‐I and phase‐II production.

Maryland