Identification tool for fishes by using meristic and morphometric characteres

鱼类的识别对于鱼类学家和渔业生物学家来说是非常重要的，他们需要知道鱼的名字。然而，通常很难准确识别鱼类，因为有如此多的相似物种在不同的类群中，如Percoid。当鱼类学家和渔业生物学家试图识别鱼类时，他们通常依靠野外指南和识别钥匙。对于许多渔业生物学家来说，键通常很难理解，因为在到达键的末端之前，有太多的对联。尤其是科和属的检索表在许多情况下不能清楚地显示出明显的字符。迫切需要创造一种识别工具，使非分类学家能够通过使用相对容易的字符，如可计数和可测量的字符来识别鱼类。近年来计算机技术的发展使许多分生和形态特征在鱼类鉴定中的应用成为可能。由于分生和形态特征对于非分类学家来说比较容易识别，而且这些特征很容易通过统计程序在计算机上处理，所以我们试图利用这些特征来建立一个识别工具。我们的研究成功地在最初设计的程序的基础上产生了实用的识别工具。当该工具的用户在搜索框中输入合并和形态测量数据并按下“搜索”按钮时，该工具就会提供候选物种。这个工具被放在国家自然与科学博物馆的网站上；很容易从网站上下载。这一鉴定工具运行在渔业生物学家广泛使用的软件Microsoft Excel上。

Identifications of fishes are very important for ichthyologists and fisheries biologists who need to know names of fishes. However, it is usually difficult to exactly identify fishes because there are so many similar species in diversified groups such as percoids. When ichthyolgists and fisheries fisheries biologists try to identify fishes, they usually rely on field guides and identification keys. Keys are usually difficult for many fisheries biologists to follow, because there are so many couplets until reaching to the end of the keys. Particularly the keys for families and genera do not clearly show distinguishing characters I many cases. There are strong needs to create an identification tool which enables non-taxonomists identify fishes by using relatively easy characters such as countable and measurable characters. Recent developments of computer technology make practically possible to use many meristic and morphometric characters for identification of fishes. Because meristic and morphometric characters are relatively easy for non-taxonomists to identify fishes and those characters can be easily treated by computer with help of statistical program, we tried to establish an identification tool by using those characters. Our study successful produced the practically useful identification tool based on originally designed program. When users of this tool put meristic and morphometric data into search boxes and push "search" button, the tool provides candidate species. This tool was put on a website of the National Museum of Nature and Science ; it is easily downloaded from the website. This identification tool run on the software Microsoft Excel which is widely used by fisheries biologists.