Course Description

This one-day course is for fisheries professionals and students interested in expanding their R skills to include analysis of age and growth data. Through a sequence of demonstrations and hands-on application exercises, participants will use R to construct and apply an age-length key to estimate ages of individual fish from their lengths, summarize mean length-at-age with a von Bertalanffy growth function (VBGF), statistically compare VBGF parameters between two or more groups of fish, and construct appropriate metrics and graphics for comparing precision (APE, ACV) and bias (age agreement table, tests of symmetry, and age-bias plots) between two sets of estimated ages. Participants should be familiar with the fundamentals of R, including basic applications.

Pre-Course Preparation

• Install at least version 3.3.0 of R on your laptop. Directions for a first install are here for Windows or here for MacOS. If you are using Windows and already have R installed, then here is an easy method to upgrade.
• I prefer to use RStudio to interact with R (but RStudio is not required for this course). Directions to install and prepare RStudio (along with a quick introduction to the RStudio interface) are here for Windows and here for MacOS.
• Install the FSA, FSAdata, AICcmodavg, dplyr, magrittr, nlstools, and nnet packages for use in this course. Directions for installing packages are here if you plan to use RStudio and here for Windows and here for MacOS if you plan to use R directly.
• Download all Slides, R Handouts, R scripts, and Exercises for the course (available individually below or collectively in this ZIP archive). I highly recommend printing all R Handouts for taking notes on during the workshop (and for reference after the workshop).
• The materials for this workshop are based on my Introduction to Fisheries Analysis with R book (IFAR). This book is NOT required for the workshop. However, the book is available at a 20% discount for participants in this workshop. Contact me if you would like details about how to receive this discount.
• You may want to (re)familiarize yourself with R basics (IFAR Chapters 1-3), age-length keys (IFAR Chapter 5), von Bertalanffy growth functions (IFAR Chapter 12), and age estimation comparisons (IFAR Chapter 4).

Course Materials

1. Age-Length Key -- Construction

   • Slides // Handout // Script // Exercise

2. Age-Length Key -- Application

   • Handout // Script // Exercise

3. Growth -- Fit von Bertalanffy Growth Function

   • Slides // Handout // Script // Exercise

4. Growth -- Compare von Bertalanffy Growth Functions

   • Slides // Handout // Script // Exercise

5. Age Comparisons -- Precision and Bias

   • Slides // Handout // Script // Exercise

Post-Course Follow-Up

• Please complete this survey regarding this short course.
• If you have any questions please feel free to contact me