Seasonal Movements, Aggregations and Diving Behavior of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus) Revealed with Archival Tags
Open accessAbstract
Electronic tags were used to examine the seasonal movements, aggregations and diving behaviors of Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) to better understand their migration ecology and oceanic habitat utilization. Implantable archival tags (n = 561) were deployed in bluefin tuna from 1996 to 2005 and 106 tags were recovered. Movement paths of the fish were reconstructed using light level and sea-surface-temperature-based geolocation estimates. To quantify habitat utilization we employed a weighted kernel estimation technique that removed the biases of deployment location and track length. Throughout the North Atlantic, high residence times (167+/-33 days) were identified in four spatially confined regions on a seasonal scale. Within each region, bluefin tuna experienced distinct temperature regimes and displayed different diving behaviors. The mean diving depths within the high-use areas were significantly shallower and the dive frequency and the variance in internal temperature significantly higher than during transit movements between the high-use areas. Residence time in the more northern latitude high-use areas was significantly correlated with levels of primary productivity. The regions of aggregation are associated with areas of abundant prey and potentially represent critical foraging habitats that have seasonally abundant prey. Throughout the North Atlantic mean diving depth was significantly correlated with the depth of the thermocline, and dive behavior changed in relation to the stratification of the water column. In this study, with numerous multi-year tracks, there appear to be repeatable patterns of clear aggregation areas that potentially are changing with environmental conditions. The high concentrations of bluefin tuna in predictable locations indicate that Atlantic bluefin tuna are vulnerable to concentrated fishing efforts in the regions of foraging aggregations.
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Adult BFT rarely cross the thermocline.
“and rarely cross the thermocline (Walli et al. 2009)”
From Comparison between environmental characteristics of larval bluefin tuna Thunnus thynnus habitat in the Gulf of Mexico and western Mediterranean Sea (2013) · cites this paper as Walli et al. 2009
The Results (Ambient temperature and depth preferences; page unavailable) report that mean diving depth tracked thermocline depth, but do not establish that adult bluefin tuna rarely crossed it. In one water mass, tagged tuna spent only 64.2% of their time above the thermocline, so the claim overstates the reported pattern. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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Cites
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BackgroundElectronic tagging and population structure of Atlantic bluefin tuna
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Arrizabalaga, H., Dufour, F., Kell, L., Merino, G., Ibaibarriaga, L., Chust, G., Irigoien, X., Santiago, J., Murua, H., Fraile, I., et al. (2015) · Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography · doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2014.07.001 · Cited by 194 · see citing works
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Muhling, B. A., Brill, R., Lamkin, J. T., Roffer, M. A., Lee, S.-K., Liu, Y., & Muller-Karger, F. (2017) · ICES Journal of Marine Science · doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsw215 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
- Authors
- Walli, A., Teo, S. L. H., Boustany, A., Farwell, C. J., Williams, T., Dewar, H., Prince, E., & Block, B. A.
- Affiliations
- Hopkins Marine Station (US)
- University of California, Davis (US)
- NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Southwest Fisheries Science Center (US)
- NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Southeast Fisheries Science Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Walli, Andreas
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2009-07-07
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- e6151
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2701635
- OpenAlex
- W2151237264
- Cited by
- 170
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 9.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, public-domain)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, public-domain)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Marine and fisheries research
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ichthyology and Marine Biology
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Fish Ecology and Management Studies
- Keywords
- Thunnus thynnus, seasonal migration, foraging aggregations, diving behavior, dive depth, residence time, thermocline, water column stratification, sea surface temperature, primary productivity, fishing vulnerability, North Atlantic
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Behavior, Animal, Diving, Seasons, Tuna, Animal Migration
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