Spatial distribution of sardine (Sardinops sagax) eggs and larvae:: an application of geostatistics and resampling to survey data

The abundance of eggs and larvae of sardine (pilchard) (Sardinops sagax) off the south coast of Western Australia was investigated using geostatistical and bootstrap resampling techniques. A two-dimensional correlogram showed that the patch of newly spawned pilchard eggs had dimensions of 8 nautical miles (M) in diameter in the offshore direction and 10 M in the alongshore direction. For older stages, the size of the patch tended to increase and the level of cohesion decrease. It was more difficult to determine the size of the patch from directional variograms. The abundance of 1- and 2-day-old eggs in the study area was estimated using ordinary kriging. A bootstrapping analysis suggested that the optimal sampling design for day 1 eggs should use 4 x 10 M grids, an increase in intensity on the 5 x 15 M grids used in previous surveys.