Biological and statistical interpretation of size-at-age, mixed-effects models of growth.

ABSTRACT: The differences in life-history traits and processes between organisms living in the same or different populations contribute to their ecological and evolutionary dynamics. We developed mixed-effect model formulations of the popular size-at-age von Bertalanffy and Gompertz growth functions to estimate individual and group variation in body growth, using as a model system four freshwater fish populations, where tagged individuals were sampled for more than 10 years. We used the software Template Model Builder to estimate the parameters of the mixed-effect growth models. Tests on data that were not used to estimate model parameters showed good predictions of individual growth trajectories using the mixed-effects models and starting from one single observation of body size early in life; the

SUBMITTER: Vincenzi S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7211857 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature