Indirect estimation of contact selectivity for gill nets using hierarchical models

Data used to indirectly estimate contact selectivity for experimental gillnets using walleye catches in Lake Erie as a case study. Specifically, two different configurations of experimental gill nets were fished throughout Lake Erie's western and central basins during 2007-2008 and 2011-2013. Most notably, these gear configurations differed in construction material (monofilament vs. multifilament mesh) and mesh sizes present (monofilament range = 1.5 to 7.0 inch stretch measure in 0.5 inch increments; multifilament range = 2.0 to 5.0 inch stretch measure in 0.25 inch increments), but also in other aspects such has twine diameter, too (see specific details in Vandergoot et al. 2011; Kraus et al. 2017).Data are organized into a series of individual tabs that contain set-specific abiotic information (abiotic_data), set-specific walleye catch data with length and weight observations for individual fish (raw_catch_data), summarized catches of walleye by 25-mm length bins for each mesh size present across all net sets for each gear configuration (mono_pooled_catch_data; multifilament_pooled_catch_data), catches of walleye by 25-mm length bins for each mesh size present for individual net sets for each gear configuration (mono_set_catch_data; multi_set_catch_data), and set-specific covariates used to explore correlations with estimated parameter deviations (covariates). Specific details for each tab's contents can be found in the data_dictionary tab.All R code used in analyses present in Faust et al. (2025) can be found online at https://github.com/faustmd/hierarchical_selectivity.Literature citedFaust, M.D., T.O. Brenden, and C.L. Cahill. Accepted. Indirect estimation of contact selectivity for gill nets using hierarchical models. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.Kraus, R.T., C.S. Vandergoot, P.M. Kocovsky, M.W. Rogers, H.A. Cook, and T.O. Brenden. 2017. Reconciling catch differences from multiple fishery independent gill net surveys. Fisheries Research 188: 17-22.Vandergoot, C.S., P.M. Kocovsky, T.O. Brenden, and W. Liu. 2011. Selectivity evaluation for two experimental gill-net configurations used to sample Lake Erie walleyes. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 31: 832-842.