Near-global spawning strategies of large pelagic fish

Kristine Camille V Buenafe; Sandra Neubert; Kylie L Scales; Daniel C Dunn; Jason D Everett; Jason Flower; Iain M Suthers; Pablo Granados-Dieseldorff; Alvise Dabalà; Kris Jypson T Esturas; James Mercer; Anthony J Richardson

doi:10.1038/s41467-025-63106-w

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Near-global spawning strategies of large pelagic fish

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Near-global spawning strategies of large pelagic fish

Kristine Camille V Buenafe, Sandra Neubert, Kylie L Scales, Daniel C Dunn, Jason D Everett, Jason Flower, Iain M Suthers, Pablo Granados-Dieseldorff, Alvise Dabalà, Kris Jypson T Esturas, …

Nature Communications, Vol.16, pp.1-16

2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63106-w

PMID: 40890116

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Near-global spawning strategies of large pelagic fish

Abstract

conservation biology

marine biology

Understanding the spawning strategies of large pelagic fish could provide insights into their underlying evolutionary drivers, but large-scale information on spawning remains limited. Here we leverage a near-global larval dataset of 15 large pelagic fish taxa to develop habitat suitability models and use these as a proxy for spawning grounds. Our analysis reveals considerable consistency in spawning in time and space, with 10 taxa spawning in spring/summer and 9 taxa spawning off Northwest Australia. Considering the vast ocean expanse available for spawning, these results suggest that the evolutionary benefits of co-locating spawning in terms of advantageous larval conditions outweigh the benefits of segregated spawning in terms of reduced competition and lower larval predation. Further, tropical species spawn over broad areas throughout the year, whereas more subtropical and temperate species spawn in more restricted areas and seasons. These insights into the spawning strategies of large pelagic fish could inform marine management, including through fisheries measures to protect spawners and through the placement of marine protected areas.

Details

Title: Near-global spawning strategies of large pelagic fish
Authors: Kristine Camille V Buenafe (Corresponding Author) - The University of Queensland
Sandra Neubert - The University of Queensland
Kylie L Scales - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and Engineering
Daniel C Dunn - The University of Queensland
Jason D Everett - The University of Queensland
Jason Flower - University of California, Santa Barbara
Iain M Suthers - UNSW Sydney
Pablo Granados-Dieseldorff - Waitt Foundation
Alvise Dabalà - The University of Queensland
Kris Jypson T Esturas - The University of Queensland
James Mercer - UNSW Sydney
Anthony J Richardson - The University of Queensland
Publication details: Nature Communications, Vol.16, pp.1-16
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
Date published: 2025
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63106-w
ISSN: 2041-1723
PMID: 40890116
Copyright note: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Data Availability: The environmental, oceanographic and larval data used to run the models are available in the Zenodo database (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14745329). The model outputs generated in this study have been deposited in the Zenodo database (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14745329).
Grants: Sustainable fisheries in dynamic seascapes: understanding the physical drivers of fisheries bycatch of marine megafauna, DE210100367, Australian Research Council (Australia, Canberra) - ARC
Grant note: S.N. was supported through a QUEX scholarship, a joint initiative of The University of Queensland and the University of Exeter.
Organisation Unit: School of Science, Technology and Engineering
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991157970402621
Output Type: Journal article

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