Introduction to stock assessment.

Course focus on the basic concepts of stock assessment and the use of R for quantitative analysis. This course has a theoretical (25%) and a practical component (75%). The participants will learn the phases of fisheries stock assessment models, from the conceptualization, the data requirement, its computational implementation, uncertainty analysis, and the interpretation.

This course is organized by Cousteau Consultant Group.

Objectives

• Provide the basic concepts in stock assessment.

• Analyze simple mathematical models that incorporate the concepts of population dynamics and stock assessment.

• Provide the participants specific statistical tools in fish stock assessment.

• Use of specific R packages.

Course program

• Day 01:
  Introduction to stock assessment.
  Functions using R. Fittig models to data.

• Day 02:
  Fishery data. Catch per Unit of Effort (CPUE)
  Biomass Dynamic Models.
  Least squares and likelihood fitting.

• Day 03:
  Methods for standardizing CPUE. Age-structured models.
  

• Day 04:
  Virtual Population Analysis (VPA). Statistical catch-at-age (SCAA).
  

• Day 05:
  Introduction to data-poor assessment methods.
  Catch-MSY and CMSY.