Question

At Lake clay, marine biologist catch, tag, and release 50 small mouth bass. over the next few days, they catch 175 smallmouth bass, of which 7 have the original tags. what is the estimated population of smallmouth bass in lake clay?

Answer 1

Answer: The estimated population of smallmouth bass in lake clay can be calculated using the Lincoln-Petersen index.

This method is based on the idea that the proportion of tagged fish among all the fish caught will be proportional to the proportion of the total population that was tagged.

Formula: N = (C1 * N1) / (C2 - 1)

where N is the estimated population, C1 is the total number of fish caught, N1 is the number of tagged fish caught, and C2 is the number of tagged fish caught among all fish caught.

In this case:

C1 = 175 (total number of smallmouth bass caught)

N1 = 50 (number of smallmouth bass initially tagged)

C2 = 7 (number of tagged smallmouth bass caught among all fish caught)

So, the estimated population of smallmouth bass in Lake clay is:

N = (C1 * N1) / (C2 - 1) = (175 * 50) / (7-1) = 8750

Therefore, the estimated population of smallmouth bass in Lake clay is 8750.

Explanation: