The shortfin scad (locally know as "picudillo") is widespread and relatively common throughout the Indo-Pacific (Smith-Vaniz and Williams 2016). The stock structure of Decapterus macrosoma in the Eastern Pacific is not known. The species is assessed as a single stock in Ecuadorian continental waters, therefore an assessment unit top node is assigned with a management unit for Ecuador, where it represents one of the main species of the fishery for small pelagics and it is mainly used for reduction purposes (González et al. 2008).