Journal of Environmental Biology

Age and growth of the red tilefish, Branchiostegus japonicus in the
northern East China Sea

Joon Taek Yoo^*1, Young Min Choi², Yeong Hye Kim² and Jung Hwa Choi²

¹Jeju Fisheries Research Institute, National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI), Jeju 690-192, South Korea
²Fisheries Resources Research Team, NFRDI, Busan - 619-902, South Korea

(Received: February 22, 2007; Revised received: October 26, 2007; Accepted: November 27, 2007)

Abstract: Age and growth of the red tilefish, Branchiostegus japonicus in the northern East China Sea were examined from right otoliths of 591 fish. Marginal increment analysis showed that annual ring formation occurs during the early winter months, supporting the hypothesis that one growth ring is deposited each year. Growth of red tilefish was expressed by von Bertalanffy’s equation as TLt = 61.5 [1 – exp{ –0.150(t – 0.312)}] for males and TLt = 50.6[1 – exp{ –0.162(t + 0.337)}] for females, where TLt is the total length in cm and t is age in years. It was found that females during the first 3 years grew larger than males, but after 3 years females were smaller than males. This phenomenon may be closely related to sexual maturity of red tilefish.

Key words: Red tilefish, Branchiostegus japonicus, Otolith, Age and growth, East China Sea

PDF of full length paper is available with author (yoojt@momaf.go.kr)

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