Assessing Different Models for Determining the Effect of Birth Date on Fish

Abstract

Many models have been used to examine how natural selection acts on phenotypic traits. In this study we assessed different mathematical approaches for measuring selection on birth date in juvenile coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) from otolith data. Our goal was to find a model or group of models capable of modeling selective mortality in a mathematically tractable, robust, quantitative, and biologically meaningful way.