ASPIC Software

for fishery surplus-production modeling

Last update: July 9, 2008

Nonendorsement: Tradenames are used on this page to identify computer hardware and software. Links to other products are offered for the user's convenience. Nothing here implies endorsement of any product by the author or by NOAA. All software should be evaluated by the user for suitability, safety, and correct operation.

ASPIC synopsis

ASPIC is a computer program for fisheries stock assessment work. The program implements methods described in Prager (1994) and Prager et al. (1996) to fit a nonequilibrium surplus-production model to data on fish catch and relative abundance.

Features of ASPIC include:

Fits logistic (Schaefer) and generalized (Pella–Tomlinson) surplus-production models
Observation-error estimator assuming proportional variance
No assumption that observed yields are equilibrium yields
Up to 10 simultaneous or sequential data series
Bootstrap confidence intervals on estimates
Requires time series of removals and either standardized fishing effort or relative abundance

ASPIC and related programs are available free of charge, but with no warranty of any kind. Because of licensing restrictions on some subroutines, only compiled versions for Windows are available here. If you require source code (e.g., to run ASPIC on a different operating system), please contact the author.

ASPIC downloads

Important: Reported bugs are fixed promptly. For best results, please use the current version of ASPIC.

Current Version. Download ASPIC here as a zipped Windows installer. To install, unzip the file and run the installer. The download includes these items:

ASPIC 5.0 (command-line and drag-and-drop versions)
ASPICP, a projection program for ASPIC (command-line and drag-and-drop versions)
AGRAPH, a graphics program for ASPIC
REPAST, a program to compute target reference points
User's Manual and Quick-Reference Card (PDF)

Two older versions are available.

• Starting with version 5.30, ASPIC is significantly faster. Some results may differ in least significant decimal places. To replicate exactly results of earlier 5.xx releases, download aspic.exe 5.24 in this ZIP file. No installer or accessory programs are provided. To use, Install the full current version, then replace the executable files with the ones in this download.

• To duplicate even older analyses, version 3.93 of ASPIC is available this ZIP file. No installer is included. No updates to versions 3.x have been made since June, 2003. Because version 5.x includes many improvements and fixes several minor bugs, analysts are advised to use ASPIC 5.x for new work. Changes in input files from version 3.x to 5.x are minor.

Related files and programs

ASPIC User's Guide	When you download ASPIC, a copy of the user's guide is included. It also can be downloaded alone.
ASPICP (projections)	From ASPIC bootstrap output, ASPICP makes projections under user-specified conditions of TAC or fishing mortality rate. It is included in downloads of all versions of ASPIC.
AGRAPH (graphics)	ASPIC and ASPICP provide character plots, but higher quality graphics are often needed. AGRAPH is a Windows program that reads ASPIC 3.x and 5.x output files and makes commonly used graphs. The download of ASPIC 5.0 includes AGRAPH.
ZIP and UnZIP	ZIP files on this site are compressed with the free ZIP program from Info-ZIP. The files can be uncompressed with many different UnZIP utilties, including the free Info-ZIP versions.
PrintFile	Some ASPIC users find this freeware utility handy for printing ASPIC output files, which are 120 characters wide. PrintFile was written by Peter Lerup of Malmo, Sweden.
ConTEXT	For editing ASPIC input files, an editor that can mark and move rectangular blocks is useful. ConTEXT, a freeware programmer's editor, offers that ability. ConTEXT was written by Eden Kirin of Zagreb, Croatia.