Accurate estimates of age composition are essential for fisheries management, but evaluation of protocols to estimate age data are rarely conducted. Herein, known‐age Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp. from six hatchery stocks were used to examine accuracy of multiple scale‐aging protocols and to assess how errors in age assignment may affect age composition estimated from scale data. Accuracy reached 1.0 for one stock of Coho Salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch, over 0.9 for three stocks of spring Chinook Salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, and was no higher than 0.8 for two stocks of fall Chinook Salmon. For all hatchery stocks, accuracy increased and bias decreased when readers had auxiliary information about a fish's fork length and sex. Results suggest that a protocol that collects scales from above the lateral line, provides auxiliary information on fork length and sex, allows readers to exclude individuals for which age appears unclear, and uses an arbitrator to assign age when two initial readers disagree may produce the most accurate and unbiased age data from scales. This study highlights the importance of assessing patterns in age errors both qualitatively and quantitatively. A general pattern of overestimating age for younger age‐classes and underestimating age for older age‐classes was evident. This pattern in age errors could affect age composition estimates for adult Pacific salmon and other species with few (e.g., two to six) age‐classes. In addition, individual variation in demographic rates may affect individual patterns identified on scales; thus, for stocks with more extensive individual demographic variability, like fall Chinook Salmon stocks, accuracy may be lower and bias higher, resulting in less accurate estimates of age composition.

中文翻译：

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使用量表评估太平洋鲑鱼年龄的方案的准确性和偏倚

年龄构成的准确估计对于渔业管理至关重要，但是很少进行评估估计年龄数据的协议。在这里，已知年龄的太平洋鲑鱼Oncorhynchus spp。从六家孵化场中抽取了六只孵化场的种群，以检验多种比例分龄方案的准确性，并评估年龄分配中的错误如何影响根据比例数据估算的年龄组成。一只Coho Salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch的准确度达到1.0 ，超过三只春季Chinook Salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha的准确度达到0.9，对于两只秋努克鲑鱼股票，该价格不高于0.8。对于所有孵化场种群，当读者获得有关鱼叉长度和性别的辅助信息时，准确性会提高而偏差会降低。结果表明，该协议可从侧线上方收集秤，提供有关叉子长度和性别的辅助信息，允许读者排除年龄不明确的人，并在两个最初的读者意见分歧最大的情况下使用仲裁员分配年龄。体重秤的准确无偏的年龄数据。这项研究强调了定性和定量评估年龄错误模式的重要性。明显的普遍模式是高估年龄段的年龄和低估年龄段的年龄。这种年龄误差模式可能会影响成年太平洋鲑鱼和其他年龄类别很少（例如，两到六个）的其他物种的年龄组成估计。此外，人口统计学特征的个体差异可能会影响在规模上确定的个体模式；因此，对于个体人口统计变异性较大的股票（例如秋努克鲑鱼股票），准确性可能较低，而偏倚较高，从而导致对年龄构成的估计不够准确。