Analysis of the temporal and spatial distribution of 686 records of egg masses and egg mass groups from (i) recreational divers and posted in the various public media, (ii) scientific survey data collected during research programs and (iii) publications in peer-reviewed literature plus published and unpublished information on the seasonality of the occurrence of mature females, demonstrated that the reproductio...
WGCEPH worked on six Terms of Reference. These involved reporting on the status of stocks; reviewing advances in stock identification, assessment for fisheries management and for the Ma- rine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), including some exploratory stock assessments; re- viewing impacts of human activities on cephalopods; developing identification guides and rec- ommendations for fishery data collection;...
Although cephalopod fisheries are of world-wide importance, in Europe catching cephalopods is managed only in small-scale fisheries, at national level, and few stocks are formally assessed. Because cephalopods are not quota species under the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, there is currently no requirement for assessment or management at European level. Given increasing interest in targeting cephalopods in Europe...
In past centuries, the impacts on cephalopods from humankind were negligible. The first documented small-scale exploitation of cephalopods occurred in the Mediterranean and Asia. Between 1950-2019, global cephalopod catches increased by about an order of magnitude, from 0.5 million tones to a peak of 4.85 million tons. The human impact on the oceans also increased substantially in this period. Human-induced cli...
Changing oceans impact the whole marine ecosystem in different ways. For example, rising ocean temperatures can affect the presence / absence of species, especially when local environmental conditions exceed individual species’ physiological tolerances. Accordingly, climate change has caused shifts in distribution and expansions for various cephalopods worldwide. Cephalopods play an important role in the ecosys...