Daily age determination and growth rates of freshwater fish throughout a regulated lotic system of the Murray‐Darling Basin Australia

Abstract

To facilitate future research in freshwater fish recruitment response to environmental flow delivery, size-at-age and growth models are presented for eight fish species occurring in south-eastern Australia; three small-bodied species and the juvenile 0+ age classes of five large-bodied species. Otolith increments were used to estimate the daily age of golden perch Macquaria ambigua, bony bream Nematalosa erebi, common carp Cyprinus carpio; Murray cod Maccullochella peelii, freshwater eel-tailed catfish Tandanus tandanus, Australian smelt Retropinna semoni, un-specked hardyhead Craterocephalus stercusmuscarum fulvus and Murray–Darling rainbowfish Melanotaenia fluviatilis. Linear growth models provided the best fit for length-at-age data of juvenile 0+ age large-bodied species; whereas von Bertalanffy growth functions provided the best fit to length-at-age data of small-bodied species. The results provide novel baseline data for future research in this area.