CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Argentina has an area of ca. 2.8 million km2 and the largest continental shelf in the world, with nearly 1million km². The country houses varied aquatic realms. The fish fauna comprises about 1000 species (freshwater and marine). In turn, about 150 species occur in the Argentine Antarctic sector. Since 2006 the active participation of Argentina in the Global Fishbol campaign began. Several research cruises have been carried out, building a large fish collection throughout the Argentine Sea, including coastal waters, the continental shelf and slope. Between 2011 and 2014 Antarctic cruises have been added and since 2010 we began sampling in inland waters, performing 13 field trips in 110 different sites. So far, the fish and tissue collection of the BIMOPE research group comprises more than 4000 specimens and about 490 species, representing ca. 45% of the fish species reported for Argentina. The first barcode sequences were obtained entirely in the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, Canada. Since 2010 only sequencing was carried out there and the amplicons are developed in the iBOL reference laboratory in Mar del Plata. The barcodes generated were used to increase the BOLD reference library and to test the immensely valuable tool of barcoding for specific discrimination of Argentinean fish. As a result several publications including descriptions of new species and global studies of barcoding application to marine and freshwaters fishes have been produced. Future directions include mainly the onging collection of specimens to expand the reference library of Argentina´s fish fauna; research taxonomic studies in cartilaginous and bony fish using DNA barcoding as a complementary tool; to address socially relevant questions concerning market substitution and seafood traceability.