Sorting, Recording, Preservation and Storage of Biological Samples

Marine Genetic Resources in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction: Promoting Marine Scientific Research and Enabling Equitable Benefit Sharing

“…For example, description of a new species requires information on the type locality, the place where the sample was collected. Therefore, best practices widely adopted by marine scientists, already include allocating a unique identifier to samples/specimens and recording environmental data associated with their collection (Glover et al, 2016;Schiaparelli et al, 2016).…”

“…Conventionally, samples for ecological studies at sea undergo preliminary sorting on the vessel where practical prior to preservation for taxonomic identification, stable isotopic analyses, for genetic/genomic sequencing studies, or other investigations (Figure 3). For individual specimens of megafauna (animals visible in video or photographic images underwater, generally ≥ 2 cm in length; Clark et al, 2016) and sometimes macrofauna (animals collected in sediment cores and retained by a 0.3 mm meshed sieve; Clark et al, 2016), researchers often take photographs of specimens on board using a camera on a stand or mounted on a microscope (Glover et al, 2016;Schiaparelli et al, 2016;Figures 3B,C). This practice captures features that may be lost or obscured during preservation, such as color and fine structural features.…”

“…This practice captures features that may be lost or obscured during preservation, such as color and fine structural features. Measurements and biomass of specimens may also be taken at this point (Schiaparelli et al, 2016). Photographs may aid subsequent identification or description of the species sampled.…”

“…For bulk-processed samples (i.e., mixed-taxa lots with multiple organisms within a net sample or sieved from mud in core samples), some limited sorting into major organismal groups (e.g., copepods, polychete worms etc.) may occur before preservation, and researchers may measure sample biomass or volume (Harris et al, 2000;Schiaparelli et al, 2016). Alternatively, a sample may be bulk fixed for sorting after a cruise.…”

Characterising the invertebrate megafaunal assemblages of a deep-sea (200–3000 m) frontier region for oil and gas exploration: the Great Australian Bight, Australia

“…The depth strata targeted in this study were based on generally reported bathymetric patterns in the deep sea: clearly defined shifts in community structure across the continental slope from the shelf edge ~200 m depth to the continental rise (~4000 m depth) (e.g. Schiaparelli et al, 2016), and mirroring the depth-related 'bathomic' structure observed in the Australian ichthyofauna (Last and White, 2011). Our analyses confirmed that these generalised bathomic patterns hold true for the epibenthic communities in the GAB deep sea, and are consistent with previous observations elsewhere in temperate Australia (Williams et al, 2010a, Currie andSorokin, 2011;Thresher et al, 2014).…”