I have some little experience in fish aging using otoliths dates back some 10 years ago and for my information otoliths have been used in fish aging of deep sea fishes same as pelagic fishes. I have never heard that otoliths cannot be used with deep sea fishes. A simple search in google will give many case studies which have used otoliths for aging of deep sea fishes.

Thank you Dear Albasi....

I dont have any experience in the otolith studies and planning to do some work on that and I heard that usually the otolith of deep sea fishes are not prominent.....

For example, my target species, the Splendid alfonsino, which is a deep water species usually caught at 400 ~ 600m depths and sometimes as deep as 1000m or deeper. There are many aging studies of alfonsino and take as examples the 2 studies below:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016578360000206X

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1444-2906.2004.00878.x/abstract

This has been a classical way of determining age/growth in fish as we were tought in our Basics in Fisheries College.

Thank you Dr Alabsi

From my understanding of otoliths and aging, is that you need some sort of stress event that reduces fish growth rates to create a ring, (i.e. fish that have to over winter in a lake that freezes). In places where there isnt an annual stress event that reduces growth (e.g. some tropical systems) counting otolith rings isnt as accurate as other metrics.

In any case, looking at the citations provided by Natheer Alabsi aging deep sea fish using otoliths looks like it works. But, before diving into this technique (or any technique) it may be worth reading a fisheries book that discusses the benefits and drawbacks of the method that you choose.

Best!

Ross

Thank you Dear Boucek for you suggestions...

as you said, I also had the same feeling since our studies belongs to tropical waters, But I have got some confidence after reading the papers sent to me by Mr Albasi. Anyway further reading very imperative in this regard

thank you all for the suggestions and recoomendations

Yes you can determine the age of deep sea fish using otolith, Accurate age determinations of fish using otoliths requires A LOT of experience. And otolith annuli tend to be much less clear than those of a tree. So don't be discouraged if you don't end up with a clear-cut age, especially in a fish less than 3 years old. To find out about how many annuli to expect, try referring to a book which tells you how fast your fish species grows. But after ageing 10 or 20 otoliths, the patterns tend to become more clear, and you might be surprised how much more confidence you develop in your ages!

Hi dear Ratna Das

I have started working on that...as you said its need much expertise on that...

thank you for your suggestions

regards

Hello Anish

it depends the life span of the species. Age can be validated for long-living species using C bombing method. I have used this technique on long living bivalves living in deep waters.

Raouf

Dear Dr Kilada

Thank you for your valuable suggestion. We are just started our research in the otolith studies. Initially we are trying to get some good otolith micro section slides and determine the age out of it. We have almost perfected the embedding of the otolith in the resin. Once I am in a position to determine the age from the otolith I will try to go for some validation studies as you suggested. The unfortunate thing is those types of advanced researches are not ding here. I would like to carry on this and looking for attending some good training on otolith research abroad. I will be very happy and grateful to you if you can suggest me some training progarmmes offered in reputed labs worldwide.

Regards

Aneesh

Offcourse it is possible, one of our colleage have done reserach on this aspect about 5 years ago

Yes offcourse, the age of fishes beside operculum and scale can be determined by the otolith. It can be beside done by taking the bones of fishes under consideration, however, one of our colleague had done reserach already by taking otolith into consideration about 5 years ago.

Thank you dear Gupta for your suggestions

Certainly it is possible to age deep sea fish from otolith.

..not only can age be determined using otolith rings, ongoing studies reveal a possibility of determining age using otolith shape features that correlate with population size classes.

..considering the lack of annual rings in otoliths from tropical fishes, other trusted but less cumbersome alternatives for ageing must be explored

why dont use length frequency analysis. It is low cost method.

Using length -frequency analysis is indeed an option but confounding factors exist. For example the more older fishes that constitute a sample the more challenging it becomes to resolve the population into discernible age groups particularly age groups beyond 2 years.

Dr Mohanchander

length frequency analysis is not a perfect method to understand the age of slow growing fishes. Most of the fishes in the deeper areas are slow growing and long life

Thank you Chukwuka for your suggestions. As you said the tropical fishes lack clear annual rings. But I could see clear and distinct annual rings in some deep sea fishes.

regards

Dear Dr Ross

Thank you for your suggestions and I fully agree with you that most of the tropical fishes does not give distinct annual rings. we have made some preliminary studies on some selected deep sea fishes and I could get some distinct annual rings. That is why I am interested to go ahead with that. Please give me your valuable suggestions on this regard.

Dear Aneesh, are these deep sea fishes tropical species? and are these rings annual rings indeed?

Dear Aneesh, are these deep sea fishes tropical species? and are these rings annual rings indeed?

Dear Chukwuka

Yes those fishes are from Indian waters (tropical waters)... We got some clear annual rings from the otoliths. Mr Albasi, during our discussion on this matter in this forum, has sent me some good papers on the age determination of deep sea fishes from the otolith micro sections from the tropical waters

Vous pouvez combiner à la fois l'analyse des fréquences de taille et l'examen des strucures osseuses (otolithes, vertèbres, épines...). Ceci vous donnera des informations supplémentaires sur l'âge de ces poissons.

Dear Kraiem

Yes we are planing to do the same....We start sample collection....Thank you for suggestions...Is it possible to get some sort of training programmes on otolith studies in your institute...

Regards

Aneesh

Dear Kumar,

My advisor has performed analysis on otholiths from deep dwelling flounders with no problems at all. Length frequency distribution can shed some light, although it has its serious shortcomings. Also, if not regenerated, scales can also provide robust age determinations

Regards,

Juan

Dear Molina

thank you for your comments..As you said, I have started work on otolith microstructure

....we will try all the possible methods for the study

Dear Aneesh, if u need help on otolith shape analysis i could help as part of some collaborative effort to provide complementary findings for your work. Cheers

Dear Chukwuka..

Thank you very much and you are welcome for the same. presently I have started data collection I will contact you once we started our analysis. Presently I am concentrating on a deep sea fish called Psenopsis cynanea...

....could you send me some journals that speak a bit about its ecology, habitat use and reproductive behaviours? I would like to have some basic but critical information about this species. Tanx

Dear Chukwuka

Hope you remember me. Please recollect our previous discussion about the shape analysis. We have initiated the otolith shape analysis of Hoplostethus melanopus. I have digitised the images and extracted the shape using imagej software. this species showing high variability in the otolith shape with growth. We want to do the Fourier Analysis for elucidating the shape descriptors. We are stuck here and dot have expertise for the further analysis. We are very much interested to have a collaborative effort in this regard

Cheers