Jackknife-corrected parametric bootstrap estimates of growth rates in bivalve mollusks using nearest living relatives

Quantitative estimates of growth rates can augment ecological and paleontological applications of body-size data. However, in contrast to body-size estimates, assessing growth rates is often time-consuming, expensive, or unattainable. Here we use an indirect approach, a jackknife-corrected parametric bootstrap, for efficient approximation of growth rates using nearest living relatives with known age–size relationships. The estimate is developed by (1) collecting a sample of published growth rates of closely related species, (2) calculating the average growth curve using those published age–size relationships, (3) resampling iteratively these empirically known growth curves to estimate the standard errors and confidence bands around the average growth curve, and (4) applying the resulting estimate of uncertainty to bracket age–size relationships of the species of interest. This approach was applied to three monophyletic families (Donacidae, Mactridae, and Semelidae) of mollusk bivalves, a group characterized by indeterministic shell growth, but widely used in ecological, paleontological, and geochemical research. The resulting indirect estimates were tested against two previously published geochemical studies and, in both cases, yielded highly congruent age estimates. In addition, a case study in applied fisheries was used to illustrate the potential of the proposed approach for augmenting aquaculture management practices. The resulting estimates of growth rates place body size data in a constrained temporal context and confidence intervals associated with resampling estimates allow for assessing the statistical uncertainty around derived temporal ranges. The indirect approach should allow for improved evaluation of diverse research questions, from sustainability of industrial shellfish harvesting to climatic interpretations of stable isotope proxies extracted from fossil skeletons.