Dear fish-ecology netters,
 
I wonder if anybody can give me some advice on likelihood ratio tests for the statistical comparison of
growth curves.  As I gather from the literature this statistical approach is somewhat better than other methods
for comparisons between VBGF parameters (ie Linf, K and t0).  I have consulted a number of recent papers
employing this technique, but none of them seems to provide clear details on how the growth curves were fitted
to the different data set/combinations resulting from the linear constraints to be satisfied. The original paper
by Kimura (1980, Fishery Bulletin, 77: 765-776) contains FORTRAN subroutines required by BMDP to run the tests,
although I shudder at the idea of having to go through all that.  And I am therefore wondering if this could
be done in another way, perhaps using another statistical package like SYSTAT (which I routinely use to fit
nonlin models).
 
I would greatly appreciate any feedback on this topic,
 
Thanks in advance
 
Lorenzo Vilizzi
 
 
Department of Zoology
University of Adelaide
GPO Box 498
Adelaide 5005 SA
Australia
 
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