Genetic and Phylogenetic Resources for Biology and Evolution of Fishes

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An award had been made to support for one of the largest tissue collections of fishes in the world, Saint Louis University's Genetic Resources and Collection (GRC), started in the late 1980's. This collection contains tissues and associated information that are irreplaceable with respect to geographic coverages of species and species diversity, suitable for a plethora of evolutionary, ecological, molecular, and toxicity studies. The GRC is an important, internationally known repository and contains important temporal samples and geographic materials for use in investigations associated with gene expression, ecology, toxicology, epidemiology, and physiology, and anatomy. The thoroughness of this collection provides materials significant to human health, food security, human security and safety, and long-term livelihood and socio-economic development, and systematic and evolutionary biology of fishes. This award will provide funding for two years to enhance the curation of the GRC. Activities will include purchase of new freezers and a freezer databasing system, and will support a web-based system for more efficient collection management and user access, an effective tracking and inventory system, and chain-of-custody. A new staff curator position will serve as a permanent collections manager. Since 1980 the GRC has gifted or exchanged 24,122 specimens to 122 institutions and 532 scientists (sometimes multiple requests by individual); gifts range from 1 to 4,484 specimens and from 1 to 2,884 species; 55 Ph. D. dissertations have used materials from the collection. This grant will also allow for enhanced public access to the holdings of the collection and the development of a best practices manual for tissue collections and a survey of the world's tissue resources on fishes.