Extremely Low Sample Size Allows Age and Growth Estimation in a Rare and Threatened Shark

Understanding life history parameters is key to assessing demography, biological productivity, and extinction risk of fishes. Age and growth analyses in chondrichthyan fishes (sharks, rays, and ghost sharks) is primarily undertaken through counting vertebral band pairs. For rare, threatened, and protected species such as river sharks (Carcharhinidae; Glyphis), obtaining sufficient vertebrae samples may not be possible. Here we use a very small sample size, selective size-class sampling, back-calculation techniques, and a Bayesian hierarchical model that accounts for repeated measures to provide age and growth information for the Speartooth Shark Glyphis glyphis from which comprehensive sampling is not possible. Ten individuals were selectively sampled from the Adelaide River, Northern Territory, Australia. Bayesian length-at-age models using a combination of informative and uninformative priors in a multi-model framework were applied to the observed and back-calculated data with the sexes combined. Band pair counts produced age estimates of 0–11 years and suggest that age at maturity is possibly >12 years. Most model parameter estimates for length-at-birth (L0) and asymptotic length (L∞) were biologically plausible. The Gompertz growth function, applied through a Bayesian hierarchical approach to back-calculated data, provided the best fitting and most biologically appropriate length-at-age parameters: L∞ = 229.5 cm TL ± (14.6 SE), gGom = 0.16 yr−1 ± (0.01 SE), and L0 = 58.2 cm TL ± (1.4 SE). The results presented here are the first study to apply Bayesian methods to back-calculated length-at-age data while accounting for repeated measures.