Juvenile Albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) foraging ecology varies with environmental conditions in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem

Juvenile North Pacific Albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) support commercial and recreational fisheries in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME), where they forage during summer and fall. The distributions of the commercial and recreational fisheries and estimates of forage availability have varied substantially over the past century. Time-series quantifying Albacore diet can help link forage composition to variability in Albacore abundance and distribution and, consequently, their availability to fishers. Previous diet studies in the CCLME are of relatively short duration, and long-term variability in Albacore diet remains poorly understood. We describe the diets of juvenile Albacore from three regions in the CCLME from 2007 to 2019 and use classification and regression tree analysis to explore environmental drivers of variability. Important prey include Northern Anchovy (Engraulis mordax), rockfishes (Sebastes spp.), Boreal Clubhook Squid (Onychoteuthis borealijaponica), euphausiids (Order: Euphausiidae), and amphipods (Order: Amphipoda), each contributing >5% mean proportional abundance. Most prey items were short lived species or young-of-the-year smaller than 10 cm. Diet variability was related to environmental conditions over the first 6 months of the year (PDO, sea surface temperature, and NPGO) and conditions concurrent with Albacore capture (region and surface nitrate flux). We describe foraging flexibility over regional and annual scales associated with these environmental influences. Continuous, long-term studies offer the opportunity to identify flexibility in Albacore foraging behavior and begin to make a predictive link between environmental conditions early in the year and Albacore foraging during summer and fall.