Journal article
Near-global spawning strategies of large pelagic fish
Nature Communications, Vol.16, pp.1-16
2025
PMCID: PMC12402119
PMID: 40890116
Abstract
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 QueenslandSandra Neubert - The University of QueenslandKylie L Scales - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringDaniel C Dunn - The University of QueenslandJason D Everett - The University of QueenslandJason Flower - University of California, Santa BarbaraIain M Suthers - UNSW SydneyPablo Granados-Dieseldorff - Waitt FoundationAlvise Dabalà - The University of QueenslandKris Jypson T Esturas - The University of QueenslandJames Mercer - UNSW SydneyAnthony 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; PMC12402119
- 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).
- 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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