Read Effects of a Reduced Daily Bag Limit on Bluegill Size Structure in Wisconsin Lakes (Rypel, 2015) and be prepared to discuss the following items in class.

  1. What has a major impact on Bluegill size structure?
  2. Describe the two major life history strategies employed by male Bluegill? How does this impact management of this species?
  3. What were the objectives of this study?
  4. Describe the “before-after control-impact” (BACI) design used in this study.
  5. Explain why the interaction term in the two-way ANOVA analysis is the effect of interest in this study.
  6. Be prepared to discuss Figures 2 and 3, and Table 2.
  7. Be prepared to explain Figure 4.
  8. Do you think that an increase of 20 mm in mean length is “important” (see author’s discussion of why he used “modest” in his descriptions)?
  9. What was a major shortcoming of this study?
  10. What are (at least three) take home messages from this reading?