I feel that a word of caution is called for in comparing von Bertalanfy growth curves. Most programs for fitting these curves give parameter estimates without confidence limits, and of course the calculation of confidence limits for nonlinear models is something that most analysts try to avoid. However I have found that these ranges can be very broad, and in particular I have frequently found that the confidence range for L infinity can include infinity -- even though the data may seem to approach an asymptote, this is not significant in a statistical sense, and a straight line provides an acceptable fit to the data. Also, some fitting techniques use incorrect transformations, and will not provide correct fits if one of the fish in the sample is larger than the mean L infinity.
Bill Silvert
--- Eduardo Sendra <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Dear Listers: > We are trying to compare growth curves from > several populations of > Argentine silversides from nearby localities > (lakes). We have estimates of von > Bertalanfy's parameteres for all of them and would > like to compare overall > growth or growth performance for the stocks...
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