Assessing sources of uncertainty in length-based estimates of body growth in populations of fishes and macroinvertebrates with bootstrapped ELEFAN.

•ELEFAN-based fit methods for the analysis of length-frequency data were tested and improved.•The new, bootstrapped approach provides best fits and 95% confidence intervals for all parameters.•This new approach showed a high level of reproducibility and accuracy.•A new statistic for the information content of length-frequency data is introduced (pseudo-R²).•This study demonstrates a promising new path for length-based studies of aquatic populations.