Page Contents: Section | Significance | Background | Location & Dates | Taxonomic Contents | Documentation | Description of Collection | Collection Inventory | Collection Assets
PICES-RAS, Vostok Bay, Russia 2011
Section Responsible for Processing
MBC
Significance
PICES is the acronym of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization, an intergovermental research organization which promotes and coordinates cooperative marine studies. The member nations are the USA, Canada, Russia, China, Korea, and Japan. Japan, through PICES Working Group 21 on non-indigenous aquatic species, has funded a 5-year project which includes rapid assessment surveys (RAS). Russia was the host of the 2011 survey. Experts from the member countries collected baseline data and worked together to inter-calibrate species identification which allows for the standardization of data between regional surveys. The specimens from this survey will help answer questions about reliability of identifications on both coasts, amphipacific distribution, movement of species between the western and eastern North Pacific coasts, and invasive species.
Background
The survey was organized by Dr. Vasily Radashevsky (A.V. Zhirmunsky, Institute of Marine Biology, Vladivostok). Polychaete worms, peracarids (small crustaceans), and marine algae were particularly well studied in the previous year’s RAS in Newport, Oregon, so it was decided to focus on these groups in 2011. Having participated in the 2010 effort, NHMLAC Polychaete Collection Manager Leslie Harris was invited as the US polychaete specialist. Drs. Radashevsky, Alexander Rzhavsky (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow), Inna Alalykina (Zhirmunsky IMB), and Marina Nekrasova (Zhirmunsky IMB), Jin-Woo Choi (Korean Ocean Research & Development Institute), and Hisashi Yokoyama (National Research Institute of Aquaculture, Japan) made a total of 7 people focused only on polychaetes. A 5-person team focused by Dr. John Chapman (University Oregon, Hatfield Marine Science Center) led on small crustaceans sampling, and 3 people worked on algae. Participants are listed in the attached report. The official survey lasted for 1 week. Harris, Chapman, and some the Russians colleagues collected and processed an additional 2 weeks. 176 polychaete taxa were identified, most of which are represented in the nearly 300 specimen lots brought back by Harris for deposition at NHMLAC. Peracarids collected by Chapman have been promised to the museum but not yet deposited.
Collection Location and Dates
Collections were made 8-27 October 2011. Participants were based at the Institute’s Vostok Bay station 3 hours away from polluted Vladivostok Harbor. Most of the sampling was done in and around Vostok Bay in habitats that varied from small harbors to rocky points to mud flats. Settling plates (man-made attachment sites for species that prefer hard substrates) were hung for 5 months in 2 Vostok Bay harbors and 1 international shipping harbor in Vladivostok before being brought to Vostok Station for examination.
Taxonomic Contents
Specimens are primarily polychaetes identified by Harris and others. A few non-polychaetes were retained as photo vouchers.
Documentation
Electronically captured and incorporated in MBC databases. Images of specimens, places, and people taken by L. Harris.
Description of Collection
A wet preserved collection. All but two polychaete lots were fixed in 95% ethanol. The exceptions are some Chaetopterus cautus and Eupolymnia robusta which were fixed in 5% formalin due to their size. These will be rinsed in fresh water and transferred to 70% ethanol.
Collection Inventory
Approximately 300 lots.
Collection Assets
| Date | View or Retrieve | File Information |
|---|---|---|
| 10/22/2014 | Retrieve [738.2 kB] | Scientific Report. |
| 10/22/2014 | Retrieve [52.0 kB] | Raw station data. |
| 11/28/2011 | Retrieve [824.1 kB] | Station report and locality description. |