Humans have changed the world’s oceans in ways that have been
devastating to many marine species. But, according to new evidence, it
appears that the change has so far been good for cephalopods, the group
including octopuses, cuttlefish, and squid. The study reported in the
Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 23 shows that cephalopods’ numbers have increased significantly over the last six decades.
“The consistency was the biggest surprise,” says Zoë Doubleday of
Australia’s Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide.
“Cephalopods are notoriously variable, and population abundance can
fluctuate wildly, both within and among species. The fact that we
observed consistent, long-term increases in three diverse groups of
cephalopods, which inhabit everything from rock pools to open oceans, is
remarkable.”
Zoë A. Doubleday, Thomas A.A. Prowse, Alexander Arkhipkin, Graham J.
Pierce, Jayson Semmens, Michael Steer, Stephen C. Leporati, Sílvia
Lourenço, Antoni Quetglas, Warwick Sauer, Bronwyn M. Gillanders. Global proliferation of cephalopods. Current Biology, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.04.002
