Over this year, the ICM has incorporated 343 specimens of cephalopods to its Biological Reference Collections (CBR), many of which correspond to species of great value to scientists, since they are very difficult to sample.
Cephalopods have high culinary and economic importance worldwide. Furthermore, they play a key role in marine food chains. For this reason, having information about them is essential to understand the dynamics of marine communities. The group ‘Ecology and Conservation of Marine Living Resources’ of the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM) contributes to this through different research projects aimed at understanding the evolution, morphology, and genetics of these species.
To this end, over this year, the ICM has incorporated 343 cephalopod specimens to its Biological Reference Collections (CBR), many of which correspond to species of great value to scientists, since they are very difficult to sample. All of these specimens can be used by researchers around the world to carry out morphological, genetic, and molecular studies.
The incorporation of these specimens to the ICM CBRs makes them valuable resources for the study of cephalopods and guarantees the identification of other specimens both in current studies and in subsequent studies, since they are fixed in formalin and preserved in ethanol, which keeps them during tens and even hundreds of years in an optimal state for the study of their morphology. In addition, tissue samples of some species are preserved exclusively in ethanol, which makes DNA extraction possible for genetic and molecular studies.
“The ICM CBRs have allowed me to use the specimens stored in them, permitting me to learn a lot about the cephalopods I study. Furthermore, I have been able to use data from species that I would have not be able to sample”, explains Fernando Fernández-Álvarez, who has used these resources to complete his doctoral thesis at the ICM, a work supervised by researcher Roger Villanueva.
"In addition, the CBRs have allowed me to deposit specimens to ensure their long-term conservation, which will make possible future research based on them", adds Fernández-Álvarez, who continues to use DNA extracted from the specimens of the CBR of the ICM for his postdoctoral project on phylogeny, systematics, and phylogeography of oceanic squids. This is a project from the Irish Research Council that Fernando carries out at the National University of Ireland Galway (Ireland)
Some of the deposited specimens correspond to type specimens, such as the red flying squid (Ommastrephes cylindraceus). The type material refers to the specimens that were used in the original description of a species, which means that anyone interested in taxonomic studies of that species will refer to this specimen when studying it.
The specimens recently incorporated into the ICM CBRs come from oceanographic surveys and samplings carried out during the MAFIA, BATHYPELAGIC, CALOCEAN, and SAP projects, in which the ICM participates. The sex, date, place, depth, and sampling method used to capture them are known for each of them, among other data.
When the specimens arrive at the ICM CBRs, the personnel in charge of this service gives them a catalog number with which they are registered and linked to all the information the belongs to them. Then they are placed in special containers that prevent the evaporation of the preservative liquid and internal and external labels are generated with the scientific information associated with each of the specimens.
All this information is periodically published on the global biodiversity platform GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), an open data scientific infrastructure that is accessible to anyone and aims to support scientific research, promote biological conservation, and promote sustainable development.