aba64100-c134-4de3-e044-0003ba6f30bd English dataset Mary Mowat British Geological Survey (BGS) +44 (0)131 667 1000 +44 (0)131 668 4140 offshoredata@bgs.ac.uk pointOfContact 2011-08-30 MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard Version 2.3.5 urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326 OGP 2004 Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA5 Technical Report - Cephalopods (North Sea) 2004-01-01 publication BGS_SEA_64 British Geological Survey This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA5) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). Cephalopods are short-lived molluscs, characterised by rapid growth rates, and are important predators and prey in oceanic and neritic environments. They can range in size from 1.5 cm in pygmy squid (Sepiolidae) to 20 m in giant squid (Architheutidae). Cephalopods exhibit the highest degree of development in invertebrate nervous systems, expressed through complex behaviour patterns such as the ability to learn and the display of complex colour changes. In contrast to other molluscs, most cephalopods lack an external shell, are highly mobile as adults and occupy similar ecological niches to predatory fish. This report focuses mainly on the species of fishery importance: the loliginid squid Loligo forbesi and the ommastrephid squid Todarodes sagittatus and Todaropsis eblanae together with the octopus Eledone cirrhosa. Brief accounts of other commonly occurring cephalopod species are also provided. Paul Henni British Geological Survey (BGS) +44 (0)131 667 1000 Murchison House, West Mains Road Edinburgh EH9 3LA UK offshoredata@bgs.ac.uk custodian Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) +44 0300 060 4000 +44 (0) 1823 284077 Admiralty Way London SW1A 2HD UK enquiries@decc.gsi.gov.uk originator notPlanned Documents NDGO0001 Fishing by-catch SeaDataNet Parameter Discovery Vocabulary 2011-03-25 revision Species distribution GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 2008-06-01 publication crust sediment SeaVoX Vertical Co-ordinate Coverages 2008-06-01 publication The SEAs data were produced as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme; Crown Copyright, all rights reserved. The DECC SEA must be acknowledged in any maps or publications that make use of the data. All the data files are freely available to the public. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal provides free access to available data and reports which have been produced through the SEA process. The site is run and managed by BGS on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Many files can be downloaded directly from this website. Those that are too large to download can be ordered via the website for postal delivery from BGS. BGS (NERC) has been contracted by DECC to publish SEA datasets on its behalf. All intellectual property rights (including , without limitation, copyrights, database rights and all other rights which subsist or may at any time in the future subsist in the Dataset(s)) in the Dataset(s) ('Intellectual Property Rights') are owned by DECC (formerly the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform). BGS has been authorised by DECC to use SEA datasets for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit basis'. BGS has been authorised by DECC to pass on SEA datasets to third parties so that they can use them for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit' basis. intellectualPropertyRights 5 English biota environment oceans SeaVoX salt and fresh water body gazetteer 2006-01-01 revision North Sea -4 1 55.8 61.5 2004-01-01 2004-01-01 http://www.offshore-sea.org.uk/site/index.php http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/sea/home.html Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal provides free access to available data and reports which have been produced through the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change SEA process. The site is run and managed by BGS on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Many files can be downloaded directly from this website. Those that are too large to download can be ordered via the website for postal delivery from BGS. download dataset As part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme this report was prepared by Gabriele Stowasser, Graham J Pierce, Jianjun Wang and M Begona Santos of the Department of Zoology, University of Aberdeen. Some of the general background material presented here is taken from the reports on cephalopods in the SEA 2 and 3 and SEA 4 areas (Pierce et al., 2002, Pierce et al., 2003). Data on cephalopod landings from the ICES area are compiled by the ICES Working Group on Cephalopod Fisheries and Life History (WGCEPH) (e.g. Anon., 2003). However, these compilations are based on ICES fisheries sub-divisions, with the SEA 5 area covering only the western part of major fisheries subdivision Iva and Ivb in the North Sea. Thus trends for the SEA 5 area have been reconstructed by reference to the source fishery databases. General patterns in cephalopod landings can be inferred from data presented in the WGCEPH report (Anon., 2003). Fishery data provide the best available information on cephalopod distribution and abundance. Since most cephalopods are landed in the UK as a by-catch of trawling, landings per unit effort (LPUE) can be used as an index of species abundance (see Pierce et al., 1994d) and such data are available on a monthly, by ICES rectangle, basis.