Kendall and Matarese: Early life history descriptions of marine teleosts 



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the total world catch of all marine species at this 

 time was less than 200 million metric tons ( t). Among 

 regions, the Northeast Atlantic ranked first in 

 catches, followed by the western central Pacific, the 

 Northwest Pacific, the Northwest Atlantic, and the 

 western central Atlantic, which together accounted 

 for over 75% of the total catch (Table 2). With the 

 goal of understanding stock fluctuations of North- 

 east Atlantic fishes, ichthyoplankton studies were 

 conducted largely under the auspices of the Interna- 

 tional Council for the Exploration of the Sea and this 

 effort is reflected in the state of knowledge for that 

 region. About the same time, similar research was 

 beginning in the Northwest Atlantic. Equally pro- 

 ductive research, following work that began in the 

 late 1800's, was being conducted on fishes of the 

 Mediterranean Sea. Early life history studies were 

 also emerging in Japan (where local fisheries have 

 always been vital) with ichthyoplankton surveys be- 

 ginning in 1938. Work that included descriptions of 

 fish eggs and larvae was also being conducted in In- 

 dia. The western central Pacific and Atlantic contrib- 

 uted significantly to the world catch, and in spite of 

 the immense numbers of species in these regions, 

 progress was made in describing larval fishes there. 

 Larvae of many groups of oceanic fishes were de- 

 scribed based largely on collections of the worldwide 

 Dana expeditions and published as Dana Reports. 

 This work resulted partially from interest in the far- 

 reaching early life history of freshwater ee\s,Anguilla 

 spp., which were important to the economy of north- 

 ern Europe. 



Since 1950, early life history knowledge has in- 

 creased significantly in several regions and is still 

 roughly in proportion to the activity of the fisheries 

 in the regions and countries involved. The total world 

 catch during this period increased to over 800 mil- 

 lion t, and the Northwest Pacific replaced the North- 

 east Atlantic as the most productive region (Table 

 2). The Southeast Pacific moved from a rank of 11 to 

 4 among the 14 regions. Earlier, the North Pacific 

 was not divided into east and west portions, but since 

 1950 the Northeast Pacific was ranked 7, although 

 the catch here was only 15% of that in the North- 

 west Pacific. Since 1950, Russian scientists have 

 documented early life histories of a wide variety of 

 fishes worldwide as a result of the activity of their 

 distant-water fishing and research fleets. During this 

 time, many fish eggs and larvae from the Northwest 

 Pacific, particularly from waters around Japan, were 

 described. Larvae of most of the fishes of the depau- 

 perate Antarctic fauna have been identified as a re- 

 sult of scientific interest and developing international 

 fisheries in the region, although the catches in this 

 region are still insignificant when compared with 



other regions. Ichthyoplankton studies in the North- 

 east Pacific initially concentrated on a few commer- 

 cially important species (e.g. Sardinops sagax, 

 Scomber japonicus, and Hippoglossus stenolepis). The 

 creation of the California Cooperative Oceanic Fish- 

 eries Investigations (CalCOFI) in 1947, which tar- 

 geted research on the Pacific sardine, Sardinops 

 sagax, was an important step for egg and larval iden- 

 tification in the California Current region of the 

 Northeast Pacific. Although only 3% of marine spe- 

 cies worldwide are expected to spawn in the North- 

 east Pacific, some species there are very abundant 

 and support large commercial fisheries. Except for 

 the speciose genus Sebastes, early life history stages 

 of most commercially important fishes in the region 

 are now well known. Recent catches in the South- 

 east Pacific ranked fourth among FAO regions world- 

 wide; however, little early life history work has been 

 conducted in this region and larvae of most fishes 

 remain undescribed. 



Key researchers 



Our use of the bibliography in Moser et al. ( 1984 ) to 

 develop a key author index means that some impor- 

 tant scientists may not have been included. However, 

 based on the key author index we developed, the con- 

 tributions of authors who produced multiple descrip- 

 tions of eggs and larvae of marine fishes have influ- 

 enced the early life history knowledge of particular 

 geographic regions in terms of the proportion of spe- 

 cies whose larvae are known. The key author index 

 for papers produced prior to 1950 is highest (>0.06) 

 in regions where the percent larvae known is also 

 highest (Table 2): Northeast Atlantic (82%), North- 

 west Atlantic (71%), and Mediterranean (63%). Re- 

 searchers on eggs and larvae before 1950 in the 

 Northeast Atlantic included Ehrenbaum, Holt, Mcin- 

 tosh, Schmidt, and Petersen (Table 4). In the North- 

 west Atlantic, early researchers included Agassiz, 

 Breder, Kuntz, and Hildebrand. The Mediterranean 

 has a long history of early life history research where 

 eight key authors including DAncona, Padoa, Sanzo, 

 and Sparta were identified for publications before 

 1950. 



Since 1950, the only region with a key author in- 

 dex >0.05 is the Northwest Atlantic, although the 

 index may be inflated because the number of species 

 in the region is probably underestimated. Active re- 

 searchers in the Northwest Atlantic since 1950 in- 

 clude Eldred, Evseenko, Houde, Leiby, and Smith 

 (Table 4). Other regions where key authors have 

 made notable contributions since 1950 are Japan, 

 the Southeast Atlantic, Northeast Pacific, and the 

 Antarctic. The relatively high taxonomic diversity of 



