EDITORIAL Fostering cephalopod biology research: past and current trends and topics Giovanna Ponte • Ariane Dro ¨scher • Graziano Fiorito Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 For the first time, European Union legislation on animal research and testing has extended its remit to include invertebrate species. The class Cephalopoda, represented by more than 700 living species, is the first invertebrate that has been selected in the list of animals considered in the EU Directive 2010/63/EU; indeed, the ‘sole’ repre- sentative among more than 30 other living invertebrate animal phyla. The Directive covers ‘all live cephalopods’ used in sci- entific and training procedures that are likely to cause to animals adverse effects such as ‘pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm’ (European Parliament & Council of the European Union 2010). Directive 2010/63/EU has been currently transposed in 14 (out of 27) Member States (http:// ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/transposi tion_en.htm) and will impact research in Europe and beyond. Studies of many invertebrates have assisted in the development of major concepts in neuroscience. Cephalo- pods and other invertebrate animals have been deployed very successfully in experimental studies of the nervous system and other aspects of biology. ‘Study of cephalopods at marine laboratories has provided material for some of the outstanding discoveries of neuroscience in this century. The giant nerve fibers are the most conspicuous example, but studies of photoreceptors and the memory mechanisms of the brain have been very fruitful, as has work on chro- matophores and many other topics’ (Young 1985, p. 153). As pointed out by Professor J.Z. Young, many important discoveries on physiological, cellular and behavioural properties common to the animal kingdom have been achieved through investigations of these diversified organisms. In many instances, the advantages of use of invertebrate as ‘model organisms’ for investigations of nervous systems have been underlined (e.g.: Sattelle and Buckingham 2006; Clarac and Pearlstein 2007). We are committed to facilitating and promoting the shar- ing of methods and knowledge in a scientific community not restricted to cephalopod workers. We believe that this epo- chal change in the use of cephalopods in research requires the highest attention and support. As the first of various steps, the no-profit research organization CephRes facilitated meetings and the collection of recent reviews and research publications into coordinated ‘special issues’ in order to depict examples of the current research effort on cephalopod biology. To achieve this goal, a collection of abstracts (Fiorito 2011; EuroCeph 2011 and CephRes 2011) and of 20 contributions collated in a special issue on cephalopod biology (Ponte and Fiorito 2013) have been produced with the help of notable scientific journals. The special issue appearing in Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology brings together a range of recent studies from diverse areas of cephalopod research. The growing concern to the welfare of inverte- brates, and on cephalopods in particular (Andrews 2011a, b; Andrews et al. 2013; Smith et al. 2013), requires a systematic analysis of the impact and guidance on maintenance and use in research of cephalopods. The cephalopod community is working hard, in a coordinated way to keep elevated stan- dards on this aspect, and contribute to the development of This article forms part of a special issue on Cephalopod Biology under the auspices of CephRes-ONLUS (www.cephalopodresearch. org); Guest Editor: Graziano Fiorito. G. Ponte Á G. Fiorito (&) Associazione Cephalopod Research ‘CephRes-ONLUS’, via dei Fiorentini 21, 80133 Naples, Italy e-mail: graziano.fiorito@gmail.com URL: http://www.cephalopodresearch.org A. Dro ¨scher Dipartimento di Storia, Culture, Civilta `, Universita ` degli Studi di Bologna, Bologna, Italy 123 Invert Neurosci DOI 10.1007/s10158-013-0156-y