# 1.3. State variables and scales¶

The basic units of OSMOSE are fish schools, which are composed of individuals that belong to the same species, and that have the same age, size (length, weight), food requirements and, at a given time step, the same geographical coordinates. From the school states (hereafter called individual states), biomass and abundance can be tracked at the population or community levels along with the size, age, and spatial dimensions (Table 1.1). Other variables can be reported such as the trophic level, the diets, the different sources of mortality, the catches from fishing operations. Because each school simulated in OSMOSE is represented from the egg stage to the terminal age, which necessitates high calculation and memory capacities, and because comprehensive information on entire life cycles needs to be parameterized, the selection of focus species is made parsimoniously, and usually between 10 and 20 high-trophic level species or functional groups are explicitly considered in OSMOSE applications. The model grid is a lattice of square cells of about 10 km resolution, and covers areas from $$10^4$$ to $$10^6 km^2$$. The model operates on a weekly to monthly time step, and runs up to 100 years or more depending on applications and simulations.

Table 1.1 List of state variables

Individual State variables

Description

Auxiliary state variables / indicators

abundance

Number of fish (N) in the school at the beginning of the time step

biomass

Biomass (B) of the school at the beginning of the time step (tons)

age

Age of the fish (year)

species N or B per age class

length

Size of the fish (cm)

fish N or B per size class (size spectrum), mean size of fish, large fish indicator

weight

Weight of the fish (g)

trophicLevel

Trophic level (TL) of the fish

fish N or B per TL (trophic spectrum), TL of species, TL of catches

Number of dead fish in the current time step for each mortality cause (predation, fishing, natural mortality, starvation)

Catches per species, size class, age class

predSuccessRate

Ingested biomass at current time step/maximum ingestion rate

preyedBiomass

Biomass of prey ingested by the school at current time step (tons)

fish diets per species, per size class, per age class

lat, lon

location of the fish school in latitude and longitude coordinates