Interim Report of the Working Group on North Sea cod and plaice egg surveys in the North Sea 2 (WGEGGS2)

The Working Group on North Sea Cod and Plaice Egg Surveys in the North Sea 2 (WGEGGS2) met in Hamburg, Germany, on 25 and 26 October 2016. Five participants representing five different countries participated in the meeting, which was chaired by Matthias Kloppmann, Germany. The objectives of the meeting were to address the ToRs for the current year, namely: a) Review results of the 2016 MIKey-M net surveys and plan the 2017 survey; c) Write the MIKey-M net survey manual; d) Prepare WGEGGS2 data for archiving; and e) Review results on molecular identification of fish eggs.In 2016, sampling of fish eggs was undertaken by Norway, Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, France, and Scotland during the IBTS using the MIKey-M net as recom-mended during previous WGEGGS2 meetings. The weather conditions end of January and in February 2016 were atrocious resulting in a relatively poor coverage of the area, especially in the central and northern North Sea but despite the weather the whole North Sea was sampled.