Study on development rules and growth curve fitting of early cultured winged pearl oyster (Pteria penguin)

We measured the growth traits of cultured Pteria penguin in Xincun Port for 17 months and selected three growth models of Logistic, von Bertalanffy and Gompertz for fitting the growth model of growth traits in P. penguin to establish the optimum growth equation of growth traits. Growth parameters in each growth model were estimated by Levenberg-Marquardt iteration method. The results indicate that Gompertz model was the optimal growth model for growth curves of growth traits. The growth limits of shell length, shell height, shell width and total weight of P. penguin were 93.519 mm, 90.641 mm, 39.075 mm and 157.755 g, respectively. The growth inflection points of the growth traits were 2.86 months for shell length, 4.04 months for shell height, 5.63 months for shell width and 9.61 months for total weight. The absolute growth rate of growth traits varied in different growth periods, which increased firstly and then decreased with increase of months. The relative growth rates were different among the four growth traits and gradually tended to 0. The results provide references for prediction of future change in culture ecology, selection breeding and pearl production of P. penguin.