Project Description

Pelagic longline and purse seine fisheries for tunas, sharks and marlins are unique compared to other fisheries in the world in that they catch a relatively narrow component of the food web. Although these piscivorous fishes constitute the apex predators in these ecosystems, many of these species also prey upon members of their own guild. The work we propose seeks to quantify the magnitude and nature of these "intra-guild" predation and cannibalism interactions and to explore their implications for tuna population dynamics and for the fisheries targeting them. Our approach combines a research synthesis of the extensive historical and contemporary food habits studies of these fishes with simulation modeling to quantify biologically plausible responses of skipjack, yellowfin, and bigeye tuna to fishery-induced depletion of their predators.

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