Journal
ECOLOGY
Volume 95, Issue 6, Pages 1674-1683Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1890/13-1467.1
Keywords
Cs-134; Cs-137; amino acid compound-specific stable isotope analysis; Fukushima; pelagic predators; stable isotope; Thunnus orientalis
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [NSF-OCE 1041329, 1305791]
- NOAA
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Stanford Graduate Fellowship
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Div Of Biological Infrastructure [1305791] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Ocean Sciences
- Directorate For Geosciences [1040810] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Large pelagic predators play important roles in oceanic ecosystems, and may migrate vast distances to utilize resources in different marine ecoregions. Understanding movement patterns of migratory marine animals is critical for effective management, but often challenging, due to the cryptic habitat of pelagic migrators and the difficulty of assessing past movements. Chemical tracers can partially circumvent these challenges by reconstructing recent migration patterns. Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis; PBFT) inhabit the western and eastern Pacific Ocean, and are in steep decline due to overfishing. Understanding age-specific eastward transpacific migration patterns can improve management practices, but these migratory dynamics remain largely unquantified. Here, we combine a Fukushima-derived radiotracer (Cs-134) with bulk tissue and amino acid stable isotope analyses of PBFT to distinguish recent migrants from residents of the eastern Pacific Ocean. The proportion of recent migrants to residents decreased in older year classes, though the proportion of older PBFT that recently migrated across the Pacific was greater than previous estimates. This novel toolbox of biogeochemical tracers can be applied to any species that crosses the North Pacific Ocean.
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