The Task
Counting all of the fish in the sea has long been a romantic notion; one usually viewed as Sisyphean. The ‘All Fishes’ Initiative won’t meet this challenge, but it will gather barcodes for all fish species. This is a significant endeavour as fish are the most diverse group of vertebrates; 20,000 marine and 8,000 freshwater species have been described. This project will assemble DNA barcodes for all these species, except the rarest, over the next 5 years, a task requiring the analysis of some 500,000 fish specimens.

Pilot Projects
Over the past year, three pilot studies, executed at the University of Guelph in collaboration with leading fisheries researchers, have validated the effectiveness of DNA barcodes in fish identification. In October 2004, DNA barcodes were gathered from 220 of Australia’s commercial marine fish species (Dr. Ward, CSIRO). Earlier studies on 250 species of marine fish from South African waters (Dr. Connell, CSIR) and 100 species of fish from Pacific Canada (Dr. Boutillier, DFO) yielded similarly positive results. These investigations, coupled with the recent establishment of high-volume analytical facilities, indicate that it is feasible to develop a comprehensive DNA barcode library for fishes within 5 years.

Why Barcode Fishes?
Fish are the most diverse group of vertebrates; they also form an important component of the human diet in both developed and developing nations. However, these fisheries are often being exploited beyond sustainable levels. As well, many fish are subject to aquaculture and smaller species are frequently exploited by the aquarium trade. Because of these pressures, conservation concerns and lists of threatened and endangered fish species have risen rapidly. There is also growing evidence of consumer fraud as low-value species are substituted for more valuable species.How can DNA barcoding assist fisheries sustainability and increase consumer confidence? Barcoding offers a simple, rapid and inexpensive means of identifying not only whole fish, but fish fragments, eggs and larvae. Highly-trained taxonomists can identify whole fish, but they cannot unambiguously identify fillets, processed product, or immature stages. However, these activities will all be readily executed once a global barcode library for fish has been assembled. As a result, the ‘All Fishes’ initiative will assist fisheries management at multiple levels from the ability to better monitor quotas and bycatch down the management chain to better knowledge of recruitment (through egg identification) and more detailed understanding of ecological relationships (through prey identification in stomach contents).

How Will Barcoding Impact Fish Taxonomy?
Preliminary results indicate that a global barcoding initiative will increase the fish species list for our planet by at least 10%. For example, there is often deep genetic divergence between in-shore species over large geographic distances, suggesting undescribed species.

A Schedule For Activation of FISH-BOL
Plans call for the launch of FISH-BOL in early June 2005. Its activation will occur at a workshop in Guelph that will involve some 40 delegates from Australia, Canada, Chile, France, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Panama, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, UK, and USA.

Basic Scientific Activities
Contributing researchers will gather a comprehensive collection of fishes from one geographic area and place voucher specimens in a major natural history collection. Each specimen will be photographed and GPS coordinates of its capture location and other relevant information will be recorded. Tissue samples will be used for barcode analysis at one of the high-volume analytical facilities operated by the Network and residual DNA will often be cryopreserved for other analyses. All sequence data gathered by FISH-BOL will be deposited in GenBank and in the Barcode of Life database (www.barcodinglife.org) where the information will be available for public use.

For more information please refer to the FISH-BOL Press Release from the CBOL Conference in February 2005.

Check out the new the FISH-BOL site at www.fishbol.org!