Rockefeller University

Program for the Human Environment

The Barcode Blog

A mostly scientific blog about short DNA sequences for species identification and discovery. I encourage your commentary. -- Mark Stoeckle

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DNA sorts out bewildering morphology

DNA helps flag genetically divergent forms that may represent cryptic species and is equally valuable the other way around: in linking morphologically diverse forms that occur within species. In 20 jan 2009 Biol Lett, researchers from National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC; Australian Museum, Sydney; Virginia Institute of Marine Science; University of Tokyo; and Natural History Museum, Tokyo, solve the mystery of “the most extreme example of ontogenetic morphoses and sexual dimorphism in vertebrates.”

Johnson and colleagues examined specimens of small (body size 4-408 mm) deep water (1000-4000m) fishes thought to represent 3 families in the order Stephanoberyciformes (whalefish and relatives). The authors analyzed morphology and whole mitochondrial genomes from 34 individuals of 16 species including representatives of all 5 whalefish families. They found three whalefish “families” are one: “Mirapinnidae (tapetails), Megalomycteridae (bignose fishes), and Cetomimidae (whalefishes), are larvae, males and females, respectively of a single family Cetomimidae.” These are strange-looking fish–the males, which do not feed as adults, are sustained by enormous livers, and the minute larvae have streamers up to 75 cm. For fun, see deep ocean video of live female whalefish swimming (and narration of the amazed icthyologists) in supplementary material. Next up is to link the three life stages of each species; here DNA will help along with meristic data (quantitative features such as number of fins or scales).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 11:38 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “DNA sorts out bewildering morphology”

  1. Sportsbook Review Says:
    April 12th, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    That is unbelievable that they don’t feed as adults. I’ve never heard of an animal sustaining themselves on their liver alone.

Contact: mark.stoeckle@rockefeller.edu

About this site

This web site is an outgrowth of the Taxonomy, DNA, and Barcode of Life meeting held at Banbury Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, September 9-12, 2003. It is designed and managed by Mark Stoeckle, Perrin Meyer, and Jason Yung at the Program for the Human Environment (PHE) at The Rockefeller University.

About the Program for the Human Environment

The involvement of the Program for the Human Environment in DNA barcoding dates to Jesse Ausubel's attendance in February 2002 at a conference in Nova Scotia organized by the Canadian Center for Marine Biodiversity. At the conference, Paul Hebert presented for the first time his concept of large-scale DNA barcoding for species identification. Impressed by the potential for this technology to address difficult challenges in the Census of Marine Life, Jesse agreed with Paul on encouraging a conference to explore the contribution taxonomy and DNA could make to the Census as well as other large-scale terrestrial efforts. In his capacity as a Program Director of the Sloan Foundation, Jesse turned to the Banbury Conference Center of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, whose leader Jan Witkowski prepared a strong proposal to explore both the scientific reliability of barcoding and the processes that might bring it to broad application. Concurrently, PHE researcher Mark Stoeckle began to work with the Hebert lab on analytic studies of barcoding in birds. Our involvement in barcoding now takes 3 forms: assisting the organizational development of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life and the Barcode of Life Initiative; contributing to the scientific development of the field, especially by studies in birds, and contributing to public understanding of the science and technology of barcoding and its applications through improved visualization techniques and preparation of brochures and other broadly accessible means, including this website. While the Sloan Foundation continues to support CBOL through a grant to the Smithsonian Institution, it does not provide financial support for barcoding research itself or support to the PHE for its research in this field.