I believe in most, if not all, species of octopus the male dies after mating and the female dies shortly after the eggs in her care hatch. Also depending on the species, anywhere from 20,000-200,000 eggs will hatch and I've read that only around 1% will make it to adulthood.
In captivity octopuses are considered relatively difficult to keep due to their sensitivity to water quality. They have a fairly narrow band of acceptable levels of pH, ammonia, nitrite, and salinity. Copper is pretty much Kryptonite to an octopus. I’m unsure what the potential is for large scale changes in oceanic chemistry but I imagine it would be devastating to octopuses, along with overfishing.
I’m actually curious how serious a threat overfishing is. Seeing as how difficult they are to contain I wonder if most commercially available octopus are specifically fished for or are just a byproduct of some other fishing and whether this has a large affect on their populations.
> I’m unsure what the potential is for large scale changes in oceanic chemistry
We are down from pre-industrial 8.25 pH to 8.08, and no sign of slowing. Major changes are certain. I don't know if this means the water will dissolve more metals like Cu, but it seems possible.
In captivity octopuses are considered relatively difficult to keep due to their sensitivity to water quality. They have a fairly narrow band of acceptable levels of pH, ammonia, nitrite, and salinity. Copper is pretty much Kryptonite to an octopus. I’m unsure what the potential is for large scale changes in oceanic chemistry but I imagine it would be devastating to octopuses, along with overfishing.
I’m actually curious how serious a threat overfishing is. Seeing as how difficult they are to contain I wonder if most commercially available octopus are specifically fished for or are just a byproduct of some other fishing and whether this has a large affect on their populations.