Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Ahead of Print.
Environmental temperature directly controls the rate at which ectotherms grow and develop. The growing degree-day metric (GDD, °C·day) scales time by temperature to create a thermal time scale relevant to ectothermic organisms. Here we assess the ability of GDD to model size-at-age and duration-to-moult in 15 datasets (9 size-at-age, 6 duration-to-moult) comprising 7 species of lobsters and crabs. We applied generalized linear models to assess the ability of GDD vs. “calendar” time to explain growth and development observations within and across trials. Best-fit models included GDD with fewer parameters in 6 of 9 size-at-age and 5 of 6 duration-to-moult datasets and a better fit to the data in 6 of 9 size-at-age datasets. Our results show that the individual growth of lobster and crab species can be modelled using thermal time models. Such models can be used to identify thermal tolerance limits, predict growth under varying temperature conditions and disentangle temperature effects from those of other factors affecting individual growth and development, resulting in improved growth models for field conditions including fisheries management.

中文翻译：

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评估生长期度量标准解释龙虾和螃蟹的年龄大小和换羽时间变化的能力

加拿大渔业和水生科学杂志，印刷前。
环境温度直接控制等温线生长和发育的速率。生长期-日度量 (GDD, °C·day) 通过温度来衡量时间，以创建与变温生物相关的热时间尺度。在这里，我们评估了 GDD 在包括 7 种龙虾和螃蟹的 15 个数据集（9 个年龄大小，6 个蜕皮持续时间）中对年龄大小和蜕皮持续时间进行建模的能力。我们应用广义线性模型来评估 GDD 与“日历”时间的能力，以解释试验内和试验间的生长和发育观察结果。最佳拟合模型包括 GDD，在 9 个适龄大小数据集中的 6 个和 6 个蜕皮持续时间数据集中的 5 个参数较少，并且更适合 9 个适龄大小数据集中的 6 个数据。我们的研究结果表明，龙虾和螃蟹物种的个体生长可以使用热时间模型进行建模。