Abstract
Life history traits, such as age, growth, and maturity, are essential in fisheries management. However, Alopias pelagicus lacks the age and growth parameters in Ecuador, despite being the elasmobranch species with the highest number of landings in the country. Therefore, the aim of this work was to estimate the age, growth, and maturity parameters of A. pelagicus in the Ecuadorian Pacific. For this, field trips were carried out in Playita Mía, Manta, Ecuador from June 2021 to May 2022. In these field trips, the vertebrae of 304 individuals were collected. Frequentist and Bayesian multimodels (von Bertalanffy, Gompertz, and Logistic) were used to estimate age and growth parameters. A logistic model was used to estimate the mean size at maturity. The inflection point in males was estimated from a modified logistic model. The best fit was given by the Bayesian logistic model for combined sex (L∞ = 168.16 cm PCL, L0 = 73.76 cm PCL, g = 0.34 year−1) according to leave-one-out-information-criterion (LOOIC). Age and length at maturity were estimated at 5.12 years and 141.28 cm PCL, respectively in males. The inflection point was estimated at 133.67 cm PCL. The information presented here is necessary for future demographic analyses. It is necessary that future studies can estimate the age and length at maturity in females.
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