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Towards global traceability for sustainable cephalopod seafood

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Abstract

Cephalopods are harvested in increasingly large quantities but understanding how to control and manage their stocks, and tracking the routes of the consumption that exploits them, lag behind what has been developed for exploiting finfish. This review attempts to redress the imbalance by considering the status of the major cephalopod stock species and the traceability of cephalopod seafood along the trade value chain. It begins with a general overview of the most important exploited cephalopods, their stock status and their market. Four major cephalopod resources are identified: the three squid species Todarodes pacificus, Dosidicus gigas and Illex argentinus; and one species of octopus, Octopus vulgaris. The techniques and problems of stock assessment (to assess sustainability) are reviewed briefly and the problems and possible solutions for assessing benthic stock such as those of octopuses are considered. An example of a stock well managed in the long term is presented to illustrate the value of careful monitoring and management: the squid Doryteuthis gahi available in Falkland Islands waters. Issues surrounding identification, mislabelling and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing are then reviewed, followed by a discussion of approaches and techniques of traceability as applied to cephalopods. Finally, some of the mobile apps currently available and in development for tracking seafood are compared. This review concludes with observations on the necessity for the strengthening and international coordination of legislation, and more rigorous standards for seafood labelling and for taxonomic curation of DNA sequences available in public databases for use in seafood identification.

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Fig. 1

(Data from Fisheries Agency of Japan and Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency (2021), a public-domain resource which is updated periodically)

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(Source: FAO 2022b)

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Acknowledgements

The authors are most grateful to Athena Allen, at Nature Bureau Ltd. UK, for her able and efficient administrative assistance, particularly with collating the references and citations. Gleadall (IGG), Moustahfid (HM), Sauer (WHHS) and Willette (DAW) gratefully acknowledge the efforts and support of the team during work on the Seafood Tracer project (NSF Grant #2137582 to DAW), particularly Cheryl Ames (a Co-Principal Investigator on that project), Amina Jackson, Margarita Joaquin, Julie Kim, and Kevin Wang. Pita (CP, University of Aveiro, Portugal) acknowledges FCT/MCTES for the financial support to CESAM (UIDP/50017/2020 + UIDB/50017/2020 + LA/P/0094/2020) and research contract 2020.02510.CEECIND. WHHS also acknowledges the support of the GCRF funded One Ocean Hub project. The authors thank Chingis Nigmatullin for suggesting the Yuri M. Froerman dedication and providing a brief biography.

Funding

This work was supported in part by US National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant 2137582 to Demian A Willette. Paul W. Shaw received financial support from the Aberystwyth University Impact Leave Fund; and Warwick HH Sauer support via the GCRF funded project, One Ocean Hub. The other authors declare that no funds, grants, or other supports were received during the preparation of this review.

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IGG, HM and WHHS conceived the review and drew up the initial content headings. All authors made substantial contributions to drafting the review and revised it critically for important intellectual content and relevance; approved the version to be published; and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

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Correspondence to Ian G. Gleadall.

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Conflict of interest

Ian G Gleadall is Executive Director of AiCeph LLC, Consultant to Hotland plc, Tokyo (a fast-food franchise company specializing in octopus products), and, along with Warwick HH Sauer, was a Consultant and Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) on the Seafood Tracer project funded by NSF Award 2137582. Demian A Willette was Senior Co-PI on the Seafood Tracer project, Hassan Moustahfid was a Co-PI, and Isa Elegbede and Unai Markaida were Consultants. The remaining authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

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Responsible Editor: R. Rosa.

This paper is dedicated to the memory of Dr Yuri M. Froerman, who died on 9 March, 2023. Active particularly in the 1970s and 1980s at AtlantNIRO, Kaliningrad, he was an outstanding researcher, working his way up from technician to become Head of the Laboratory of Commercial Invertebrates. In the mid-1970s, he formulated a working hypothesis concerning the life cycle of the squid Illex illecebrosus in the Northwest Atlantic, overcoming many difficulties to organize expeditions to study the ecology of the early stages of the development of this species, brilliantly verifying his hypothesis. In the 1980s, he made great contributions to studies on the population ecology of Illex argentinus in the Southwest Atlantic, and the fishery ecology of Dosidicus gigas in the Costa Rica Dome area. As Chief Scientist of a research cruise in 1988, he identified dense concentrations of D. gigas and organized the Soviet Jumbo Squid Trawl Fishery in this area in 1989–1991. Unfortunately, he had to retire from cephalopod research in 1992.

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Gleadall, I.G., Moustahfid, H., Sauer, W.H.H. et al. Towards global traceability for sustainable cephalopod seafood. Mar Biol 171, 44 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-023-04300-6

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