Different naturalmortality in different years

[inspktrgadget]

Does anyone know the correct syntax for specifying different values of natural mortality during different years and/or timesteps in Gadget? Or if it's even possible. I feel as though this should be capable by adding a "mortality file" to the stockfile as below, but am not quite sure about the syntax. The user guide only states that a vector of mortalities may be given:

Stockfile

stockname   zebrafish
livesonareas   1
...
maxlengthgroupgrowth    15
naturalmortality    mortfile
iseaten    0
...

mortfile

timedata    stockdata
2000         0.2
2001         0.2
...

Note that I came to the above file structure through trial and (gadget) error(s). When naturalmortality mortfile is specified, but say a vector of natural mortalities is given (a value for each age) then gadget spits an error that states Expected timedata or stockdata but found instead 0.2

[vbartolino]

You need to point to one timeVariable file for each age class. The timeVariable file should have the following structure:

mortalityAgeXX
data
;year   step    value
2000    1   ...
2000    2   ...
...

[inspktrgadget]

Thanks, Valerio.

I wonder is this something that should be added to the user guide?

[vbartolino]

Examples and graphics to visualise the functional forms of some of the processes represented in Gadget are certainly useful addition to the user guide, but in this specific case I do not think the guide needs much more explanation. Natural mortality for each age class is a parameter per se so if we want it to change in time every parameter has to be expressed as a separate timeVariable file.