Fisheries managers use age data to estimate important components of fish population dynamics. Age estimates for fishes are often made by multiple readers, and when readers disagree, they may view the structure together to determine a concert age estimate. Few studies have evaluated the accuracy of concert readings compared to independent readings. We used anal fin rays from 240 known‐age Muskellunge Esox masquinongy to compare the accuracy and bias of age estimates from 10 independent readers and five reader pairs. We compared average difference from known age (bias) and absolute difference from known age (accuracy) between concert and independent estimates and used a bootstrap analysis to estimate the percentage of randomly sampled independent estimates that were as accurate or more accurate than concert estimates. Analyses were completed using the full data set (all estimates regardless of reader disagreement) and a subset (N = 127) including only samples for which there was disagreement between readers. Finally, we fit sex‐specific von Bertalanffy growth models based on 5,000 bootstrap data sets for independent estimates and known age to investigate the effects of age estimation procedures on growth models. Overall, and when there was disagreement between readers, independent estimates were as accurate and less biased for fish older than age 12 compared to concert estimates. Independent estimates were as accurate or more accurate than concert estimates for 79% of bootstrap samples based on the full data set and 65% of bootstrap samples from the subset of data. Additionally, mean parameter estimates for von Bertalanffy growth models did not differ between models using randomly selected independent estimates and models using known ages. When completing studies that require age estimation, we recommend first verifying the utility of concert age estimates because if concert estimates do not improve accuracy, time may be saved by selecting one reader’s individual age estimate.

中文翻译：

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Muskellunge肛门鳍射线对音乐会和独立年龄的估计准确性

渔业管理人员使用年龄数据估算鱼类种群动态的重要组成部分。鱼的年龄估计通常是由多个读者进行的，并且当读者不同意时，他们可能会一起查看结构以确定音乐会的年龄估计。与独立阅读相比，很少有研究评估音乐会阅读的准确性。我们使用了240个已知年龄的Muskellunge Esox masquinongy的肛门鳍条比较10位独立读者和5位读者对年龄估算的准确性和偏倚。我们比较了音乐会估计和独立估计之间的已知年龄的平均差异（偏差）和已知年龄的绝对差异（准确性），并使用自举分析来估计随机采样的独立估计所占百分比，其准确性比音乐会估计更准确。分析使用完整的数据集（所有的估计无论读取器分歧）和一个子集（已完成Ñ = 127），仅包括读者之间意见分歧的样本。最后，我们基于5,000个引导数据集对性别特定的von Bertalanffy增长模型进行了独立估计和已知年龄，以研究年龄估计程序对增长模型的影响。总体而言，当读者之间存在分歧时，与一致评估相比，独立评估对12岁以上鱼类的准确度和准确性较低。对于基于完整数据集的79％的引导程序样本和来自数据子集的65％的引导程序样本，独立估计的准确性与音乐会估计相同或更高。此外，对于使用随机选择的独立估计的模型和使用已知年龄的模型，von Bertalanffy增长模型的平均参数估计没有差异。