Western Arctic Marine Fish Museum Records, New Collections, Taxonomic Studies, and Atlas (Arctic Marine Fishes)
Results
By the end of the IPY, voucher specimens from the recent Pacific-Arctic cruises and the historical collections in museums had expanded the Arctic Marine Fish Museum Vouchers database from 3,102 records in the 2006 edition to 9,260 records. Specimens were examined at the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco; Hokkaido University Museum of Zoology, Hakodate, Japan; NMFS Auke Bay Laboratory, Juneau, Alaska; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; Canadian Museum of Nature, Quebec; and University of Alaska Museum of the North, Fairbanks. The database includes 531 lots, each comprising 1–35 individuals of a single species from a single tow, which were preserved from surface, midwater, and bottom trawling in 2007 and 2008. The preserved specimens will be permanently housed at the California Academy of Sciences and the University of Alaska Museum of the North, providing critical documentation of species’ geographic ranges and valuable specimens for research for current and future investigators. This research has provided greatly improved understanding of species’ ranges, including the realization that many species are more widespread in the Arctic and some were there earlier than previously reported.
The project collected 486 tissue samples for DNA barcoding. Results and photographs for 466 successful sequences representing 93 species, 68 genera, and 27 families have been uploaded (by the University of Guelph) to the Barcode of Life database. The results provide significant new information toward resolving problematic fish taxonomy and identifying species with greater accuracy. For instance, the results support the distinction between some species whose distinctiveness has been questioned (e.g., Enophrys lucasi and E. diceraus), and the synonymy of others which have been reported to differ (e.g., Aspidophoroides monopterygius and A. bartoni). The method has also linked juvenile stages with the adults of the species. For example, barcoding of Chukchi Sea fishes identified the early juvenile of longhead dab, Limanda proboscidea, which previously had not been recognized or described, by showing it to be identical to barcoded adults of the species.
The project completed the first draft for 21 species accounts which are now online and more accounts are nearing completion. The complete geographic distribution of most species had not previously been depicted on maps, and for many species, photographs of fresh specimens or of juvenile life stages had not previously been published.
Page Author: Kitty & Tony Mecklenburg
Updated: March 18, 2009
