This course introduces the principles of fisheries acoustics and the fundamental steps required to design, conduct and analyze data to estimate the abundance and distribution of marine fauna. A case study will use an example fish stock for the design of a survey and simulated results will be used to estimate the abundance at age of the fish stock using the R statistical programming language (computer code will be provided to demonstrate the steps required to estimate the abundance at age). These results represent outputs required for inputs to ICES stock assessments, and are typically used in marine ecology studies using high resolution, spatio-temporal indexed datasets.
Participating students should be numerate with a working knowledge of the R statistical programming language. The course is aimed at would-be cruise leaders, data analysts, data coordinators, graduate students, stock assessment scientists, and fishers wishing to understand the use of acoustic technologies as a remote sensor, and population abundance/biomass estimates used in stock assessments of commercially important fish or invertebrate species.