Data and model code from: Tracing growth patterns in cod (Gadus morhua L.) using bioenergetic modelling

Understanding individual growth in commercially exploited fish populations is key to successful stock assessment and informed ecosystem-based fisheries management. Traditionally, growth rates in marine fish are estimated using otolith age-reading in combination with age-length relationships from field samples, or tag-recapture field experiments. However, for some species, otolith-based approaches have been proven unreliable, and tag-recapture experiments suffer from high working effort and costs as well as low recapture rates. An important alternative approach for estimating fish growth is represented by bioenergetic modelling, which, in addition to pure growth estimation, can provide valuable insights into the processes leading to temporal growth changes resulting from environmental and related behavioural changes. We here developed an individual-based bioenergetic model for Western Baltic cod (Gadus morhua), traditionally a commercially important fish species that however collapsed re...