UC Santa Cruz

As global climate change reorganizes marine ecosystems, understanding how predators will respond to variable prey resources is critical to forecasting future community dynamics. Prey traits that affect the foraging process and recur across unrelated taxa offer a means to better anticipate predator resource use by simplifying complex foraging dynamics. Here we compare taxonomic and trait-based indicators of resource use and selection for albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga), a commercially valuable pelagic predator undergoing climate-driven range shifts. We synthesized datasets from 2005 to 2019 to evaluate diets of albacore tuna in relation to prey availability estimates from shipboard surveys in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem. Analyses with these data reveal that albacore and trawl surveys sample different aspects of the pelagic system, with albacore consuming a subset of taxa identified within trawls. Albacore consistently selected coastal prey that are schooling, undefended, silvered and countershaded, and have high energy density — suggesting that ecological mechanisms driving albacore foraging outcomes may be conserved across time and space. Ecological traits mediating predator-prey interactions consistently distinguished albacore diets from assemblages sampled by trawls across years and regions. We demonstrate that a traits-based approach simplifies taxonomically diverse predator-prey interactions and may be a valuable tool to facilitate predictions of prey resource use in changing environments.