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.<b>Literature cited</b>Faust, M.D., T.O. Brenden, and C.L. Cahill. <i>Accepted</i>. Indirect estimation of contact selectivity for gill nets using hierarchical models. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.<br>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.<br><br><br><br><br>