The Red Squat Lobster Pleuroncodes monodon in the Humboldt Current System: From Their Ecology to Commercial Attributes as Marine Bioresource

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The red squat lobster Pleuroncodes monodon, a key crustacean in the Humboldt Current System (HCS), plays an important role as predator and prey of several species of commercial interest. Off the Chilean coast, P. monodon presents benthic habits and constitutes the main resource of the industrial crustacean fishery. In contrast, off the coast of Peru, the red squat lobster exhibits pelagic habits, with knowledge gaps on traits of its ecology and no commercial fishery activities. Therefore, this review explores research conducted in the HCS, including ecological aspects and its use as a marine bioresource. ABSTRACT: This study focused on gathering available information on Pleuroncodes monodon, a widely distributed crustacean in the Humboldt Current System. Off the Chilean coast, this species presents benthic habits and constitutes the main resource of the industrial crustacean fishery; many studies have been carried out on its life cycle during the last century. In contrast, off the coast of Peru, this species exhibits mainly pelagic habits, with latent information gaps on aspects of its life history and no commercial fishery activities, such as catching, taking or harvesting from the marine environment. P. monodon is an ecologically important species, as a source of energy for its predators, which include invertebrates, birds, marine mammals and fish of commercial interest. Thus, P. monodon seems to play a key role in this ecosystem, mainly as an intermediate link between top predators and the first links in the food chain. In addition, this species presents various adaptation strategies to the changing oceanographic parameters of the areas it inhabits, even tolerating hypoxic environments and great depths in order to avoid being predated. Likewise, from an economic viewpoint, it has a high commercial value as a marine bioresource with great potential in the pharmaceutical and food industries. Considering this, more studies must be carried out to corroborate the biological, ecological, and fishing importance of this species in order to generate efficient management measures and ensure a sustainable fishery.