Biodiversity of arctic marine fishes:taxonomy and zoogeography

• Published in: Marine Biodiversity
• Main Authors: Mecklenburg, Catherine W., Møller, Peter Rask, Steinke, Dirk
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Arctic marine fishes; Barcoding; Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Zoogeography; Arctic; Chukchi; Alaska
• Online Access: https://curis.ku.dk/portal/da/publications/biodiversity-of-arctic-marine-fishes(4048cebe-c448-492f-8c6c-4135e1ad5de0).html; https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-010-0070-z; http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79952627536&partnerID=8YFLogxK

Taxonomic and distributional information on each fish species found in arctic marine waters is reviewed, and a list of families and species with commentary on distributional records is presented. The list incorporates results from examination of museum collections of arctic marine fishes dating back to the 1830s. It also incorporates results from DNA barcoding, used to complement morphological characters in evaluating problematic taxa and to assist in identification of specimens collected in recent expeditions. Barcoding results are depicted in a neighbor-joining tree of 880 CO1 (cytochrome c oxidase 1 gene) sequences distributed among 165 species from the arctic region and adjacent waters, and discussed in the family reviews. Using our definition of the arctic region, we count 242 species with documented presence, if 12 species that likely are synonyms are excluded. The 242 species are distributed among 45 families. Six families in Cottoidei with 72 species and five in Zoarcoidei with 55 species account for more than half (52.5%) the species. This study produced CO1 sequences for 106 of the 242 species. Sequence variability in the barcode region permits discrimination of all species. The average sequence variation within species was 0.3% (range 0-3.5%), while the average genetic distance between congeners was 4.7% (range 3.7-13.3%). The CO1 sequences support taxonomic separation of some species, such as Osmerus dentex and O. mordax and Liparis bathyarcticus and L. gibbus; and synonymy of others, like Myoxocephalus verrucosus in M. scorpius and Gymnelus knipowitschi in G. hemifasciatus. They sometimes revealed the presence of additional species that were not entirely expected, such as an unidentified species of Ammodytes in the western Gulf of Alaska, most likely A. personatus; and an unidentified Icelus species of the I. spatula complex with populations in the western Gulf of Alaska and the northern Bering and Chukchi Seas which could be a new species or a species in synonymy. Reviewing distribution, we found ...