Kendall and Matarese: Early life history descriptions of marine teleosts 



733 



fishes in Japanese waters accounts for its low key 

 author index (0.036), but the Japanese probably have 

 been the most prolific scientists working on early life 

 history descriptions since 1950; 125 papers by Japa- 

 nese key authors were cited in Moser et al. (1984). 

 Even so, Leis (1985) has indicated that the bibliog- 

 raphy of Moser et al. (1984) underrepresents the con- 

 tributions of Japanese scientists. Two early standouts 

 among the Japanese were Uchida and Mito, but re- 

 cent work by Dotsu, Yusa, Amaoka, Okiyama, Ozawa 

 and Fujita has significantly increased the knowledge 

 of the region. Relatively low taxonomic diversity and 

 an abundance of recent work by Olivar, among oth- 

 ers, published since 1986 contributes to a rather high 

 (0.088) key author index for the Southeast Atlantic. 

 In the California Current region the CalCOFI pro- 

 gram stimulated early life history descriptions that 

 resulted in many publications by Ahlstrom and Moser 

 (1981) and their coauthors. The Russians, as a re- 

 sult of the activity of their far-reaching fishing ef- 

 forts since 1950, have contributed to a more com- 

 plete understanding of early life history of eggs and 

 larvae in several regions through the work of key 

 authors such as Belyanina, Deknik, Gorbunova, and 

 Rass. Also, several Russians, such as Pertseva-Ostrou- 

 mova as well as non-Russians such as Bertlesen, 



Castle, and Ege have published papers on early life 

 histories of oceanic groups. 



A graph of the cumulative key author index plot- 

 ted against the percent of the number of species oc- 

 curring in various regions whose larvae are known, 

 indicates that in all regions where >60% of the larvae 

 are known, the key author index is >0.1 (Fig. 2). Re- 

 gions with low key author indices (Japan, western cen- 

 tral Atlantic, and Indo-Pacific) also have low percent- 

 ages of known larvae (<40%). However, these regions 

 also have large numbers of species present (Table 2). 



Scientific interest and taxonomic diversity 



Richards ( 1985 ) points out that early life histories of 

 commercially important groups (e.g. herrings, 

 salmons [salmonids], tunas, flatfishes [pleuro- 

 nectiforms], and cods) have been the subject of a dis- 

 proportionately greater number of studies and are 

 thus better known than groups that are not the ob- 

 jects of large commercial fisheries. Significant inter- 

 est in the systematics of particular taxa (e.g. cods in 

 the Northeast Pacific) or the recruitment of particu- 

 lar species (e.g. Gadus morhua, Theragra chalco- 

 gramma, Clupea harengus, and Scomber scombrus) 

 can lead to increased knowledge of the general early 



o 



c 



CD 



co 



c 



CD 



O 



i— 



CD 

 Q- 



80 



60 



^ 40 



20- 







0.1 0.1 0.2 0.2 



Key author index 



0.3 



0.3 



0.4 



Figure 2 



Key author index (see text) plotted against percent of species in geographic regions where 

 larvae are known. ANT=Antarctic; IPC=Indo-Pacific; JAP=Japan; MED=Mediterranean; 

 NEA=Northeast Atlantic; NWA=North west Atlantic; NEP=Northeast Pacific; SEA=Southeast 

 Atlantic; WCA=western central Atlantic. 



