Cephalopods

Vecchione, Michael and Barord, Gregory and Díaz-Santana-Iturrios, Mariana and Hendrickson, Lisa and Kidokoro, Hideaki and Lefkaditou, Evgenia and Mather, Jennifer and Moustahfid, Hassan and Okuku, Eric and Sajikumar, K K and Sauer, Warwick H H and Tuhumwire, Joshua (2026) Cephalopods. In: Third World Ocean Assessment. United Nations publication, United States of America, pp. 96-103. ISBN 978-92-1-155035-1

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Abstract

The present subchapter is an update to “Status of pelagic invertebrates: cephalopods”, an addendum to volume 1 of the second World Ocean Assessment. As a result, we concentrate on the variations in knowledge about cephalopods, as well as their estimated abundance, distribution and functional role in the period 2018 to 2024, which straddle the period between the publication of the second and third World Ocean Assessments. However, additional information is included here because the addendum was brief and somewhat idiosyncratic. Cephalopods are generally free-swimming holopelagic or demersal marine invertebrates with complex nervous systems and behaviour. They range in size from small (total length <1 cm) to huge (>14.5 m) and in distribution and abundance from solitary individuals to very large schools. Most have short lives and fast growth, and species are found from the intertidal zones (and estuaries in exceptional cases) to the hadal depths, including the water column and benthic environments. In addition to being the targets of fisheries, some species can be important predators and prey within ecosystems. Some are model organisms for biomedical and behavioural research. Other chapters within this assessment and that are relevant to cephalopods include those on fishing, pollution, climate change, marine mammals and other large predators (e.g. tunas and billfishes), and prey (e.g. plankton and marine benthic invertebrates), as well as chapters on the various marine ecosystems in which cephalopods live. For example, the importance of food web connections was highlighted recently in a publication (Pérez-Puig and others, 2024) showing that sperm whales abandoned a traditional hunting area in the Gulf of California, probably because of the reduced abundance of Humboldt squid there.

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