Trade-offs between risks of predation and starvation in larvae make the shelf break an optimal spawning location for Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Atlantic bluefin tuna (ABT) () travel long distances to spawn in oligotrophic regions of the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) which suggests these regions offer some unique benefit to offspring survival. To better understand how larval survival varies within the GoM a spatially explicit, Lagrangian, individual-based model was developed that simulates dispersal and mortality of ABT early life stages within realistic predator and prey fields during the spawning periods from 1993 to 2012. The model estimates that starvation is the largest cumulative source of mortality associated with an early critical period.