Tuna-tern facilitation

How do seabirds use tunas to find more fish? Find out in the Early View paper “Facilitative interactions among the pelagic community of temperate migratory terns, tunas and dolphins” by Holly F Goyert and co-workers. Below is their short summary of the study:

In the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, researchers and fishers have been known to follow flocks of seabirds, particularly terns, in search of Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus. We wanted to understand whether such “local knowledge” of tern-tuna associations, which has been described but not tested in the literature, is based on quantifiable community interactions. Marine biologists have speculated that these top predators have a commensal (i.e. mutualistic) relationship, such that terns benefit from feeding tunas, which draw attention to “bait balls”, then drive fish to the surface. We found positive, fine-scale, spatial and foraging (e.g. feeding) associations among tunas and terns (common, Sterna hirundo and roseate, S. dougallii), which supports our hypothesis that facilitation drives their ecological and behavioral interactions at sea, where tunas increase prey detectability and accessibility to terns.

 

common terns (Sterna hirundo) observed during a pelagic survey, 27 Sep 2006 (Photo:Marie-Caroline Martin).

The first author, Holly Goyert, observing for seabirds, marine mammals, and tunas during a pelagic survey