Long term trends in length at maturity and life history of Loligo forbesii in European waters

ICES Annual Science Conference, 9-12 September 2019, Gothenburg, SwedenCephalopods have been termed ‘weeds of the sea’ and many groups have apparently increased over recent decades. Commercially relevant cephalopods such as Loligo forbesii have increased in landings in recent years, but little is known about their vulnerability to over-fishing given their short lifecycles and status as non-quota species. Some trends in landings of this species will be presented, with an analysis of data gaps for its sustainable exploitation. Despite its commercial appeal, basic information including length-maturity data are not routinely captured for L. forbesii; however several discrete EU projects have collected this information in the last three decades. These data have been gathered by the Cephs&Chefs project and will be analysed to provide spatial and temporal trends in length-maturity as well as life-history (sex ratio) and biomass (length-weight) indices. Trends over time in this information will be examined in the context of changing ocean temperatures in the north-east AtlanticPeer reviewe