Abstract
Age and growth were studied for Schizothorax waltoni in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, southwest of China, from April 2004 to September 2006. A total of 201 specimens were collected ranging from 110 to 580 mm in standard length (SL). In contrast to other otoliths, sectioned lapillus showed a clear pattern of alternating opaque and hyaline zones. Marginal increment analyses showed that the increments, each composed of one opaque and one hyaline zone, are deposited annually. Opaque edges were prevalent from May to August. The von Bertalanffy growth parameters based on sectioned otolith data were L t = 689.8{1 − exp[0.051 (t + 3.275)]} for males, and L t = 691.1{1 − exp[0.056 (t + 2.466)]} for females. The slow growth and long life indicate that S. waltoni is vulnerable to overfishing and that harvesting strategies for the species should be conservative.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Dekui He, Feng Chen, Fuhua Hao, Yintao Jia, and Chengzhi Ding for their help during the collection of samples. This research was financially supported by the Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. KSCX2-SW-125; KSCX1-SW-13-04) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 30471345). Our experiments comply with the current laws of China.
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Qiu, H., Chen, YF. Age and growth of Schizothorax waltoni in the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, China. Ichthyol Res 56, 260–265 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10228-009-0096-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10228-009-0096-z