Report of the Planning Group on North Sea Cod and Plaice Egg Surveys (PGEGGS)

The Planning Group on Egg Surveys was originally set up to address the fact that there had never been a complete ichthyoplankton survey of the North Sea. In particular, the need to monitor commercial fish spawning areas was identified by the Expert Panel (1) that followed the 2002 Bergen Ministerial North Sea Conference. Although spawning grounds can be monitored by trawl surveys, ichthyoplankton surveys have a number of potential advantages. Since individual fish spawn thousands of eggs it is often more reliable to sample the eggs rather than the adult fish and surveying spawning grounds of species producing planktonic eggs is also not restricted by bottom‐type so a more complete spatial coverage can be achieved. Against that is the amount of additional sea‐time required to undertake egg surveys and the additional laboratory analysis time needed to work up the samples.