An otolith interdisciplinary network birth in Latin America: origins and challenges.

A.V. VOLPEDO.

Taipei

Congreso; 6th International Otolith Symposium 2018 (IOS2018); 2018

Comite 6th International Otolith Symposium 2018 (IOS2018)

In the last four decades,otoliths have been recognised by scientists as powerful tools in fish ecologydue to their ability to record vital environmental information throughout fishlife history. Although its historical use on age determination analysis, from 90´swas recorded a sharp increase in studies using otolith with more than 200papers published per year worldwide. Currently, among its many features,otolith chemical composition has emerged as a critical analysis in thediscrimination of fish stocks, identification of key habitats and othercorrelated studies for environment conservation and stock management. Nevertheless,in Latin America, the development of otolith studies using microchemistry were stillscarce (only 45 papers already published). The poor performance of such robustanalysis in this region is somehow critical, compromising the conservation ofthe high Neotropical fish diversity in the continental and marine ecosystems. Tochange this scenario, researchers from 6 countries and 22 institutions joint ina workshop held in Alagoas, Brazil on November 2017. The workshop focused onthe targets: 1. Discussion of methodological issues to identify main challengesand strategies to work in local and reginal scale; 2. A methodologicalintercalibration between the different research groups settled in Latin Americaand their international partners to defined standardized processesand protocols; 3. The current and expected application of otolithsmicrochemistry in biodiversity conservation and management of freshwater andmarine Neotropical renewable resources. Apart of any other contributionexpected from the audience after the presentation of the framework, the mainresult of this meeting was the formation of a network to boost the scientificproduction on marine and freshwater migratory species. Moreover, techniciansand equipment mapping, consumption materials funding, and further determinationof knowledge gaps in the region are part of the framework to trigger and consolidatedkey ecological studies.