CephsInAction: Towards Future Challenges for Cephalopod Science

Book excerpt: The last five years have been extremely challenging, but also very innovative for cephalopod science, and the outstanding tradition of biological contribution with cephalopod molluscs as key players in science and human activities and interests has continued. This Research Topic is one of several dedicated to cephalopod molluscs (e.g., Hanke and Osorio, 2018; Ponte et al., 2018) hosted by Frontiers over the last few years, not to mention other papers published separately. Highlighting of cephalopod science is important because it has much to offer not only the life science community, but also more broadly the public perception of science and its understanding and relationship with scientific endeavour and cephalopods as living organisms and part of our everyday life (at least for most of us). This contribution illustrates the key needs that need to be overcome by the cephalopod research community, i.e. rapid and effective mechanisms for exchange of knowledge and resources, sharing of laboratory protocols, videos, tissues, samples and data-sets, innovative approaches and initiatives in public engagement. The cuttlefish comic included is an excellent example of a type of media that can be used to expand scientific knowledge to the public and human relationship with live animals. There are strategic challenges in convincing globally distributed policy makers and funders of the relevance of cephalopods in scientific advances, and also in the regulatory aspects, since cephalopods are the only invertebrates whose use is regulated in Europe in a research context and this increases the need for integrated oversight and direction in terms of ethics and animal welfare (e.g., Jacquet et al., 2019a; 2019b; Ponte et al., 2019). This Research Topic also aligns with the interests of the cephalopod community in stimulating public interest in cephalopods extending to a broader audience that could include chefs and gourmets, and fishers and scientists aiming to develop sustainable food resources. “CephsInAction: Towards Future Challenges for Cephalopod Science” Research Topic includes 14 papers from about 40 authors representing ten different countries, thus overlapping with the original parties that contributed to the COST FA1301 that, together with CephRes, promoted and supported this editorial initiative.