Lisa Ailloud will be presenting her research entitled, "Extending close-kin mark-recapture to protogynous fihes: A simulation-based evaluation of model performance for Gulf Gag Grouper (Mycteroperca Microlepis)."

While Close-Kin Mark-Recapture (CKMR) has emerged as a promising method to reduce uncertainty in fish abundance estimates, its application to protogynous hermaphrodites remains largely unexplored. We derive CKMR kinship probabilities for sex-changing species and apply them inside an integrated stock assessment simulation framework modeled after Gulf Gag (Mycteroperca microlepis) to evaluate the robustness of the approach to existing uncertainties. Results demonstrate that CKMR can generate unbiased estimates of sex-specific abundance, provided that key reproductive and genetic parameters are properly specified.

This study underscores the importance of using simulation to test the likelihood of success of CKMR prior to field implementation.