Highly active fish in low oxygen environments: vertical movements and behavioural responses of bigeye and yellowfin tunas to oxygen minimum zones in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

ABSTRACT: Oxygen minimum zones in the open ocean are predicted to significantly increase in volume over the coming decades as a result of anthropogenic climatic warming. The resulting reduction in dissolved oxygen (DO) in the pelagic realm is likely to have detrimental impacts on water-breathing organisms, particularly those with higher metabolic rates, such as billfish, tunas, and sharks. However, little is known about how free-living fish respond to low DO environments, and therefore, the effect increasing OMZs will have cannot be predicted reliably. Here, we compare the responses of two active predators (bigeye tuna Thunnus obesus and yellowfin tuna Thunnus albacares) to DO at depth throughout the eastern Pacific Ocean. Using time-series data from 267 tagged tunas (59,910 days) and

SUBMITTER: Humphries NE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10787700 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature