December 3, 2014 — Bluefin tuna in the western Atlantic Ocean reach sexual maturity earlier than previously believed, raising the possibility the Atlantic bluefin spawning biomass is greater than traditional stock assessments have indicated, according to a new study by Israeli and Gloucester-based UMass researchers.
In the study published online in Nature’s “Scientific Reports” journal, UMass researcher Molly Lutcavage and her colleagues challenged the widely accepted belief that bluefin tuna in the western Atlantic first spawn at a much later age than their counterparts in the eastern Atlantic.
The general assumption has been that western Atlantic bluefin tuna spawn for the first time at roughly nine years of age, while eastern Atlantic bluefin reach sexual maturity between the ages of three and five years old _ despite the fact that the two groups have similar diets, grow at the same rate and even mix on the same feeding grounds in their early lives.
“With similar life histories, it’s hard to support the idea that the two groups have vastly different spawning ages,” Lutcavage, director of the UMass Large Pelagics Research Center in Hodgkins Cove, said Tuesday. “It never made sense.”
Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times