Seasonal movements, aggregations and diving behavior of Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) revealed with archival tags.

ABSTRACT: 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 temperat

SUBMITTER: Walli A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2701635 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature