Phenotypic variation in growth, maturity, and movement within genetically homogeneous demersal fish populations and their implications for management

In this thesis, I quantify the spatial phenotypic variability of two genetically homogeneous demersal fish populations in British Columbia, Canada. In the first chapter, I quantify spatial variation in yelloweye rockfish growth using a Von Bertalanffy Growth model and age-at-maturity in yelloweye rockfish using a binomial logit model. Both growth and age-at-maturity estimates lead to statistically significant variation in fishery reference point estimates with coastwide estimates overestimating spatially explicit reference points by up to 25\%. In chapter 2, I estimate size dependent movement rates for sablefish using a Markov movement model fit to tag release and recovery data. I found that sublegal and legal sized sablefish showed movement patterning consistent with a transboundary stock. Year class contributions of juvenile sablefish do not evenly cover to continental shelf, which could have implications for management.