Trial Specifications Document

South Atlantic Albacore MSE

1 Introduction

This Trial Specifications Document (TSD) describes the design and technical details of the Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) of South Atlantic albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga; SALB), including the operating models, candidate management procedures, and performance metrics used to evaluate them.

The TSD is a living document that will be updated as the MSE progresses to reflect the current state of the analysis.

For more information on the South Atlantic Albacore (SALB) MSE process see the project homepage.

1.1 SALB MSE Framework

The SALB MSE is built using the openMSE framework. The analysis is fully reproducible: all code, functions, and objects used to build the operating models, candidate management procedures, and performance indicators are available in associated GitHub repository.

To reproduce the analysis, download the GitHub repository, and work through the scripts in the analysis directory.

The operating models (OMs) were conditioned with Stock Synthesis 3 (SS3; (Methot and Wetzel 2013)) and were based on the 2026 Albacore Stock Assessment (Chapter 2).

Methot, Richard D., and Chantell R. Wetzel. 2013. “Stock Synthesis: A Biological and Statistical Framework for Fish Stock Assessment and Fishery Management.” Fisheries Research 142 (May): 86–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2012.10.012.