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What is FAST and what can the program do?
The Fishery Analyses and Simulation Tools (FAST) software package is now available for distribution. The purpose for the development of this software was to provide fishery biologists and managers a simple Windows-based computer program to simulate and evaluate the dynamics of exploited fish populations. The program provides for the evaluation of proposed minimum, slot, and inverted length limits and bag limits on very low to heavily exploited fisheries. FAST can provide applications for recreational and commercial fisheries in freshwater and marine environments.
The foundation of fish population dynamics was derived primarily for marine stock assessment, although applications for exploited freshwater fish populations can be found. We have broadened the scope of these previous approaches to include recreational aspects of fisheries where harvest is not a mutually exclusive or primary goal of management. During the past 10 to 15 years, protective slot length limits, high minimum length limits, and reduced or alternating bag limits for different sizes of fish have become widely used management tools in freshwater and more recently in some marine fisheries where fish consumption is not a priority.
The background material presented in the user’s manual was adapted from the course materials of Mike Maceina’s graduate class in fish population dynamics at Auburn University and from other short courses on this subject. We have attempted to cover just the basic information needed for a student or professional to get started in modeling fish populations. In the user’s manual, background information on growth, mortality, recruitment, and modeling are presented.
FAST requires age-structure data and uses the Jones modification of the Beverton-Holt equilibrium yield equation (see Ricker 1975) to compute both a yield-per-recruit and a dynamic pool model. For the dynamic pool model, the entire population is simulated over time similar to Ricker’s (1975) dynamic pool model. Besides yield, FAST provides the analyst with a host of predicted population parameters including for example the number of fish harvested and dying naturally, mean weight and length of harvested fish, number in the population above and below some lengths of interest, total number of fish and biomass in the population, stock density indices, number of age-1 fish, and the Spawning Potential Ratio (SPR). The SPR is an index that is primarily used in marine fisheries management to assess recruitment overfishing.
Input parameters to run the model include coefficients of the von Bertalanffy and weight:length equations, and estimates of fishing and natural mortality. Recruitment can be held constant, or the effects of systematic or stochastic variation in recruitment can be examined. Natural mortality and fishing mortality rates can be held constant or can be varied over the life time of a fish cohort. To compute the SPR, a fecundity-to-length relation, age of maturity, percentage of females, and the percentage of females spawning annually are needed. With age, length, and weight data, FAST provides the analyst with tools to compute von Bertalanffy growth equations, weight:length equations, total mortality using unweighted and weighted catch-curves regressions, and stock density indicies (PSD; RSD’s) and relative weights for fish listed in Anderson and Neumann (1996; Fisheries Techniques 2nd edition). In addition, procedures are provided to estimate natural mortality rates from equations presented in published papers.
FAST comes with a 140 page user’s manual and support documentation as PDF files. Analyses of four actual fisheries with varying management goals and the corresponding data sets serve as examples for the user. Below, the Table of Contents for the manual and the main windows for the dynamic pool model and yield-per-recruit are presented.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Installing FAST 2. COMPUTATION OF STOCK DENSITY AND RELATIVE WEIGHT INDICES 2.1 Background 3. GROWTH 3.1 Background 4. MORTALITY 4.1 Background 5. RECRUITMENT 5.1 Background 6. MODELING POPULATIONS AND FISHERIES: BRINGING GROWTH, MORTALITY, AND RECRUITMENT TOGETHER 6.1 Background 7. SIMULATED EFFECTS OF MINIMUM LENGTH LIMITS ON THE SAUGER FISHERY IN THE TENNESSEE RIVER 7.1 Background 8. EFFECTS OF VARIABLE RECRUITMENT ON THE EVALUATION OF A 254 mm MINIMUM LENGTH LIMIT ON CRAPPIE IN WEISS LAKE 8.2 Background 9. EVALUATING A 406 mm LENGTH LIMIT AND A SLOT LIMIT FOR LARGEMOUTH BASS: IMPLICATIONS FOR CATCH AND RELEASE AND TOURNAMENT FISHING IN LAKE EUFAULA 9.1 Background prior to the initiation of the 406 mm length limit 10. USE OF THE SPAWNING POTENTIAL RATIO TO EVALUATE RECRUITMENT OVER FISHING OF STRIPED BASS IN THE CHESAPEAKE BAY 10.1 Background 11. USING FAST’s SPREADSHEET AND GRAPHICS MODULES 11.1 Spreadsheet Module 12. REFERENCES Click to Enlarge
About the developers of FAST Jeff Slipke and Mike Maceina are employed by the Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures at Auburn University. Their research interests have focused primarily on population assessment and management of freshwater fish. Jeff received his BS and MS degrees in fisheries biology from Iowa State University and South Dakota State University, and currently is a Research Associate III and a Ph.D. candidate. Jeff has published a number of peer-reviewed papers and has given presentations at fisheries meetings. Mike Maceina received BS and MS degrees from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University and is currently a Professor. Mike has published 80 peer-reviewed publications, and is a consultant for a variety of private and government entities. Both Jeff and Mike conduct continuing education workshops on modeling using FAST as well as conduct short-courses on statistical design and analyses. Cost: $75 per copy for single user To purchase send check or purchase order to: |
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