The Cephalopod Umwelt
A fair way through graduate school, I began to get frustrated by a frequent occurrence: I would come upon a topic or a research paper and learn lots of great information and feel that I had a solid grasp on the topic. Time would then pass and I would move on to other interests for awhile. Then, after a few months or years had passed, the topic would arise again and I would have to call upon the knowledge I had previously gained. The content of that knowledge was almost always madingly vague or cloudy and I had to rediscover the relevant papers or information sources or re-read the paper to remember the key results. I finally decided "no more!"
As a result, I began assembling this "book" which functions for me rather like a repository of things I want to remember, but organized in a highly logical (at least in my brain) and thus searchable way. I've found this immensely helpful over the years and figured if I had compiled such info together, why not share it with others in case some of it may be useful? To that end, you can find below my repository of information surrounding cephalopods and the various factors that intersect with their lives (hence the name: "The Cephalopod Umwelt"). Current major themes are:
A few caveats must be mentioned:
As a result, I began assembling this "book" which functions for me rather like a repository of things I want to remember, but organized in a highly logical (at least in my brain) and thus searchable way. I've found this immensely helpful over the years and figured if I had compiled such info together, why not share it with others in case some of it may be useful? To that end, you can find below my repository of information surrounding cephalopods and the various factors that intersect with their lives (hence the name: "The Cephalopod Umwelt"). Current major themes are:
- Their physical environment
- Their community (other marine organisms)
- Their phylogeny (species and evolutionary history)
- Their universal biological principles (general biology info)
- Their genetics (general and ceph-specific genetic info)
- Their development
- Their morphology and physiology
- Their environmental physiology (how they respond to changes in environmental conditions)
- Their behavior and ecology
- Their fishery
- Their aquaculture
- Their study by teuthologists (methodology notes)
A few caveats must be mentioned:
- This is my personal mind-dump and thus things are inevitably not 100% accurate. The information here is just what I decided to write down at some point in the past. I try to fix mistakes as I encounter them, but surely am missing some and mis-characterizing / oversimplifying things at times. I do try to include citations for most things that I think warrant them. But, reader beware! If you find a mistake, please reach out and set me straight!
- Topics of which I'm not an expert are scant or missing entirely! There are quite a few relevant topics completely missing that I've learned about before starting this book and just have never taken the time to write down. There's also subfields to which I'm nearly entirely ignorant! Reader beware!
- As long as I'm alive, I expect this will continuously be in progress. If you find it useful, check for updates on occasion.
- I maintain this thing using LyX and export it as a PDF for easier sharing to you. I don't look at the PDF much, so if you find a weird issue (e.g. image cut off), let me know. Reader beware! Also, the table of contents are all clickable for easy navigation.
Updated: 05 Dec 2022