2022 Proposed base case model for eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna assessment using stock synthesis.

Abstract

This document presents the proposed base case for the assessment of Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean population of bluefin tuna using Stock Synthesis in 2022. The model runs from 1950 to 2020 and was fitted to length composition data, conditional age-at-length (otolith and spines–length-age pairs), 16 fishing fleets and 11 indices of abundance. Growth is modeled by a Richards function with Linf fixed at 271 cm, K fixed at 0.23387, and the shape parameter is estimated by the model. A Beverton-Holt stock recruitment relationship was estimated in the model with the steepness and sigmaR fixed at 0.9 and 0.6, respectively. R0 is freely estimated. Although the diagnostics indicate an acceptable stability of the model, there are important conflicts between the catch information, length composition and index data. The model fits to length compositions were not good, but the model followed most of the indices fairly fine. The model results showed that the SSB decreased since 1950 until 1970s, remaining relatively stable at low values during the 1980-2009 period, and showing a sharp and steady increased since 2010. Model diagnostics indicated that the different source of data provides contradicting information about the stock, resulting in biases in the results.