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ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil Advance Access originally published online on March 11, 2009
ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 2009 66(6):1410-1416; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsp039
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© 2009 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Oxford Journals. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following ICES Journal of Marine Science issue: The Ecosystem Approach with Fisheries Acoustics and Complementary Technologies [View the issue table of contents]

The influence of the environment on the variability of monthly tuna biomass around a moored, fish-aggregating device

Mathieu Doray1, Pierre Petitgas1, Laetitia Nelson2, Stéphanie Mahévas1, Erwan Josse3 and Lionel Reynal2

1 Ifremer, EMH, Rue de l’Ile d’Yeu, BP 21105, 44311 Nantes Cedex 03, France
2 Ifremer, Laboratoire Ressources Halieutiques Antilles, Pointe Fort, 97321 Le Robert, Martinique, France
3 IRD, US acoustique halieutique, centre IRD de Bretagne, BP 70 29280, Plouzané, France

Correspondence to M. Doray: tel: +33 2 40 37 41 65; fax: +33 2 4037 4001; e-mail: mathieu.doray{at}gmail.com

Doray, M., Petitgas, P., Nelson, L., Mahévas, S., Josse, E., and Reynal, L. 2009. The influence of the environment on the variability of monthly tuna biomass around a moored, fish-aggregating device. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 1410–1416.

Fish-aggregating devices (FADs) are increasingly used worldwide to enhance tuna catches. Meanwhile, ecosystem-based management of this fishery is constrained by a paucity of information regarding the interaction of FAD-associated tuna aggregations with their local environment. This paper reports the results of a nine-month study around a FAD moored near Martinique Island, aimed at assessing the effects of the local environment on the variability of monthly estimates of proximate tuna biomass. Dual-frequency, active acoustics provided high-resolution quantitative data on the pelagic community around the FAD, from fish to micronekton forage. Geostatistics were used to compute biomass estimates of the tuna aggregation comprising most of the FAD-associated fish biomass, with a sampling error of 27%. Environmental variability was summarized by a small set of principal components (PCs) derived from profiles of temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen vs. depth; and maps of chlorophyll a derived from remotely sensed, sea surface colour. A generalized linear model was used to relate tuna biomass to environmental PCs and revealed a positive correlation between tuna abundance and: (i) a micronekton layer sensed at 38 kHz and potentially consisting of preferred prey at ~180-m depth; and (ii) low subsurface salinity (60–80 m). These favourable environmental conditions may be related to the presence of North Brazilian Current eddies that migrating tuna follow when not temporally associated with the FADs.

Keywords: biomass estimation, environment, fish-aggregating device, geostatistics, Lesser Antilles, tuna

Received 7 August 2008; accepted 5 December 2008; advance access publication 11 March 2009.


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