Fishers have intensively used drifting fish aggregating devices (DFADs) over the last three decades to facilitate their catch of tropical tunas. DFADs increase purse‐seine efficiency, potentially increasing tuna fishing mortality. They could also have impacts on tuna natural mortality and reproductive potential, and assessing the consequences of their presence at sea on tuna populations is a challenge. The use of DFADs results...

We investigated the associative behavior of skipjack ( Katsuwonus pelamis ), yellowfin ( Thunnus albacares ), and bigeye ( T. obsesus ) tuna within multi‐species aggregations associated with drifting fish aggregating devices (dFADs) in two different regions of the western Indian Ocean: the Mozambique Channel and the Seychelles, using acoustic telemetry. We documented the residence and absence times of tunas at two temporal sca...