Archival and Pop-up Satellite Tagging of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

摘要: Pelagic fish have historically been a challenge to study because of their large size and highly migratory movements. Previous technological limitations recently overcome using archival pop-off satellite tags, enabling studies long-term movements, oceanographic preferences behaviors. Archival tags record information on depth, ambient internal temperatures, light levels. Their major advantage lies in the extensive detail this ability extract geolocation addition biological data. We deployed 279 Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus thynnus) western North Atlantic. To date, 40 these reported as recaptured from both Mediterranean Sea. Detailed records up 3.6 years length obtained demonstrating that prefer top 200 m water column spend more than half time upper m. maintain high body temperature despite encountering wide range temperatures (2–30°C). Patterns feeding behavior emerged providing data how often when feed at sea. Geolocation estimates for electronic tagged derived pop-up indicate show visitation aggregation New England, Carolina, Gulf Mexico well Mediterranean. Pop-up 120 west tuna. Ninety percent scheduled transmit delivered or position time. Both types tag can be combined with reveal complete picture where forage pelagic realm.