Who are we?
The IOUSP‘s Fish Fauna and Growth Laboratory (LABIC) shelters an Otolith Collection from the Southeastern-Southern Brazil Marine Fish (COSS-Brasil) accounting for more than 51,000 sagittae from 199 species. The information related to the fishes (species, family, order, species description, acronyms, length, weight, sex, stage of maturity), its capture (date, latitude-longitude, temperature, salinity, weather conditions) and the otoliths (availability, morphological and morphometric data) are stored in a Manager Database System.
The LABIC targets are: 1- to be a development and improvement center for studies involving the morphology of the otoliths, 2- to be a depository for the sagittae of the Southeastern-Southern Atlantic fishes, and 3- to make its collection available for national and international researchers to use such structures in different areas.
Based on the COSS-Brasil, a practical guide on those structures is being developed to be used as an important tool for studies related to the knowledge of the Ichthyofauna from the region and to serve as basis for phylogenetic studies, to identify species at archeological sites and to perform studies on the predator-prey relationships.
In order to quickly disclose the outcomes attained, they are being published on-line in parts in the Brazilian Journal of Oceanography as soon as they are ready, and later on the COSS Brasil site.
In those publications, detailed drawings, photos of the sagittae of different sizes in the medial and lateral face and ventral profile are provided added to a statistical analysis to allow the verification of the occurrence of ontogenetic differences, information not always available in publications on the subject.
Collaborators
- Alexandre Arackawa
- Amanda A. Camargo
- André Chalom
- André M. Vaz-dos-Santos
- Carolina C. Siliprandi
- César Santificetur
- Déborah N. Faria
- Jéssica F. Caçador
- Karina L. Wakassuqui
- Laura Montserrat Silva
- Luana K. Safranauskas
- Marcella Bockis Giaretta
- Marina C. Mussolini
- Marina R. Brenha
- Michelle Konig
- Nicolas Nathan dos Santos
- Sílvia de A. Gonçalves
- Thaís T. Mizutami
- Thiago José Balbi
- Valéria R. M. Conversani