Pop-up satellite archival tagging data of Atlantic bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Lions, Northwestern Mediterranean Sea

24 Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) individuals (117–158 cm fork length) were tagged with pop-up archival tags in the Gulf of Lion, NW-Mediterranean Sea between 2015 and 2016. Tag programming and data The tags applied (miniPATs by Wildlife Computers, https://wildlifecomputers.com) can record depth and temperature time series (denoted hereafter as DepthTS and TempTS, respectively) at a temporal resolution of 3–5 s (depending on the predefined deployment duration) and a vertical resolution of 0.5 m. Based on these data, the tag calculates and stores additional data products such as PAT-style Depth–Temperature profiles (PDT), time at depth data, and time at temperature. After pop-up, the tags transmit user-defined data products and subsets from the recorded data sets. All our tags were configured to transmit the following data products: daily light curves, DepthTS, and PDT. In order to maximize data coverage of the transmitted datasets, we decreased the temporal resolution of the DepthTS and PDT data after the first tagging campaign in 2015 from 150 to 600 s and 6 to 24 h, respectively. For both years, deployment durations were set to 150 and 90 d during spring (April–May) and summer (August–September), respectively. A description of the electronic tagging procedure can be found in Bauer et al. (2020). Seven tags were physically recovered, providing the complete archived time series data at a resolution of 3–5 s. Nineteen tags provided more than 7 d of complete DepthTS data (i.e. without transmission gaps). Three tags from 2016 had deployment durations of <1 week (#15P0983, #15P0985, and #15P0986) because of hardware failure. Provided files contain raw tag data (transmitted and recovered datasets) from the Wildlife Computers Data Portal as well as related GPE3 model runs (geolocation estimates). We thank the crews of the Cyngali and Roussillon Fishing recreational fishing vessels for their cooperation during the tagging cruises. This tagging study was part of the BLUEMED project and funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR; Project-ID ANR-14-ACHN-0002).