Spatially explicit estimates of stock size, structure and biomass of North Atlantic albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) in the North Atlantic for the period 1967-2008, compiled from statistics about ICCAT fishery region T10

The development of the ecosystem approach and models for the management of ocean marine resources requires easy access to standard validated datasets of historical catch data for the main exploited species. They are used to measure the impact of biomass removal by fisheries and to evaluate the models skills, while the use of standard dataset facilitates models inter-comparison. North Atlantic albacore tuna is exploited all year round by longline and in summer and autumn by surface fisheries and fishery statistics compiled by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). Catch and effort with geographical coordinates at monthly spatial resolution of 1° or 5° squares were extracted for this species with a careful definition of fisheries and data screening. In total, thirteen fisheries were defined for the period 1956-2010, with fishing gears longline, troll, mid-water trawl and bait fishing. However, the spatialized catch effort data available in ICCAT database represent a fraction of the entire total catch. Length frequencies of catch were also extracted according to the definition of fisheries above for the period 1956-2010 with a quarterly temporal resolution and spatial resolutions varying from 1°x 1° to 10°x 20°. The resolution used to measure the fish also varies with size-bins of 1, 2 or 5 cm (Fork Length). The screening of data allowed detecting inconsistencies with a relatively large number of samples larger than 150 cm while all studies on the growth of albacore suggest that fish rarely grow up over 130 cm. Therefore, a threshold value of 130 cm has been arbitrarily fixed and all length frequency data above this value removed from the original data set.

海洋渔业资源管理的生态系统方法与模型开发，需要能够便捷获取主要捕捞物种的标准化验证历史捕捞数据集，以量化渔业活动对生物量移除造成的影响，并评估模型性能；同时，标准化数据集的使用也有助于实现模型间的相互比对。
北大西洋长鳍金枪鱼（North Atlantic albacore tuna）全年均通过延绳钓（longline）作业捕捞，夏季与秋季则采用表层渔业方式捕捞，相关渔业统计数据由大西洋金枪鱼养护国际委员会（International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, ICCAT）整理编制。
针对该物种，经严格的渔业类型界定与数据筛选流程，研究人员提取了带有地理坐标、月度空间分辨率为1°或5°方格的捕捞量与捕捞努力量数据。在1956-2010年的研究时段内，共划定13类渔业作业类型，涵盖延绳钓、拖曳钓（troll）、中层拖网（mid-water trawl）与饵钓（bait fishing）四种渔具。
不过，大西洋金枪鱼养护国际委员会数据库中可获取的空间化捕捞努力量数据，仅占总捕捞量的一小部分。
研究同时依据前述渔业界定标准，提取了1956-2010年的捕捞体长频率数据，其时间分辨率为季度，空间分辨率范围为1°×1°至10°×20°；体长测量的分组尺度亦存在差异，采用1、2或5厘米的叉长（Fork Length）分组区间。
数据筛查过程中发现了部分异常记录：存在大量体长超过150厘米的样本，但现有长鳍金枪鱼生长研究均表明，该物种极少能长至130厘米以上。因此，研究人员设定130厘米为阈值，将原始数据集中所有超过该阈值的体长频率数据予以剔除。