| Haul-by-haul data derived from skippers' personal logbooks, from the French deep-water fishery to the west of the British Isles, were used to calculate standardized blue ling (Molva dypterygia) landings per unit effort (lpue) for the period 2000-2008. Lpue values were estimated using generalized additive models with depth, vessel, statistical rectangle, area, and year as explanatory variables. Because of their statistical distribution, landings were modelled by a Tweedie distribution, which allows datasets to contain many zeros. To investigate how to track stock trends reliably, lpue values were estimated in five areas for different subsets of the data. The subsets consisted of hauls during the spawning season (when blue ling aggregate), outside the... |
