Biology and population studies: Migrations
Albacore exhibit one of the longest fish migrations in the world. Although no migrations from the North to the South Atlantic have been recorded, some albacore have migrated from the North Atlantic to the Mediterranean and viceversa, and also transatlantic migrations have occurred (Map 3). Nevertheless, albacore migration routes are still uncertain.
Map 3. Horizontal displacement of 656 tagged and recovered albacore (Arrizabalaga et al 2002)

In the North Atlantic, both juveniles and adults apparently spend winter time in the central Atlantic area (although they have been found in the east and the west as well). When water starts warming up in spring, young albacores start a trophic (feeding) migration, heading to highly productive waters in the Northeast Atlantic part of their distribution range. In May, tuna start to concentrate in surface waters near the Azores at 38ºN latitude and begin to move north in waters of 17-20ºC of temperature. Within a period of 1-2 months the population is located south-west of Ireland and in the Bay of Biscay (Ortiz de Zárate and Cort 1998). Although some authors hypothesised the existence of two different trophic migration routes for juvenile albacore, recent studies do not support that hypothesis (reviewed in Arrizabalaga 2003). At the beginning of autumn albacore starts migrating back to the mid Atlantic through the south of Portugal, the Canary Islands and Azores.

 

  

The trophic migration takes place for the first four years of their lifetime untill they reach sexual maturity. Adult albacore, on the other hand, undertake reproductive migrations when summertime approaches. They migrate to their spawning grounds in the western part of North Atlantic (offshore Venezuela and Sargasso Sea) swimming at depths of 50-150 m.

Within the South Atlantic and the Mediterranean, very few tagging experiments have been made and therefore little is known about albacore migration patterns.