The purse seine fishery in the Mediterranean represents about 60% of the international catch for Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus). Yet, tagging operations from this segment of the fisheries remain rare and despite its potential importance for management, several aspects related to the migratory behavior of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna from these areas remain unaddressed. In the present manuscript, we report the results of two tagging operations carried out on a commercial purse seiner during two consecutive years in the spawning ground around the Maltese islands in the Central Mediterranean Sea. During these operations, eight individuals were tagged and the results showed that the larger fish (> 200 cm) undertook large-scale migrations outside the Mediterranean, whereas smaller individuals did not. This study suggests that size might affect the migratory behavior of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, and underlines the potential of large-scale tagging operations from spawning grounds to address scientific questions having significant management implications.

地中海的围网渔业约占大西洋蓝鳍金枪鱼 ( Thunnus thynnus ) 国际捕捞量的 60%）。然而，这部分渔业的标记操作仍然很少见，尽管它对管理具有潜在的重要性，但与大西洋蓝鳍金枪鱼从这些地区的洄游行为相关的几个方面仍未得到解决。在本手稿中，我们报告了连续两年在地中海中部马耳他群岛周围的产卵场对商业围网渔船进行的两次标记操作的结果。在这些操作中，标记了 8 个人，结果显示较大的鱼（> 200 厘米）在地中海以外进行了大规模的迁移，而较小的个人则没有。这项研究表明，大小可能会影响大西洋蓝鳍金枪鱼的洄游行为，