Analysis of Trends in Sex Ratio, Implications for Natural Mortality, and Variation in Age-Length Keys in Summer Flounder

The analyses described herein use the biological database for summer flounder. The goals of these analyses are to answer the following questions to the extent permitted by this database. 1. Does information exist in the sex-ratio data that would support the need to construct a sex-explicit model for summer flounder? 2. Does information exist in the sex-ratio data that would support the need to utilize regionally-specific sex-at-age keys? 3. Does information exist in the sex-ratio data that would support a differential natural mortality rate for male and female summer flounder or a nonlinear whole-stock natural mortality rate? 4. Does variation exist in the relationship of size and age that would support the need to utilize regionally-specific age-length keys?