Fig. 2

Mytilus edulis. Half-year estimates of growth in a shell length (in mm with 1 SE) and b weight of soft parts (in g AFDM) during the first years of the life of mussels on Balgzand. Horizontal axis is a time scale in months, with 0 = January 1st of year of birth (the actual start of benthic life is around June 1st: the 0-points indicated at 5 mo). Examples of three cohorts are shown: those born in 1969 (solid squares), in 1973 (open circles), and in 1987 (solid triangles). The 1969 and 1973 cohorts were sampled on the mussel bed near transects-9 and -10 (see Fig. 1 for location and Fig. 4 for length distributions) and the one born in 1987 was sampled on transect 5 (i.e., the transect with the highest numbers of mussels). Numbers of observation per point >30