By Syringa Barenti, Ainsley Derosier, Akancha Singh, Hannah Appiah-Madson, and Dan Distel
Antarctica is undergoing some of the most rapid environmental changes on the planet, putting its unique species at risk of endangerment or extinction. To help preserve this precious biodiversity, the Ocean Genome Legacy Center (OGL) launched the Polar Genomic Resource Collection (PGRC)
Dr Lisa Crockett (Picture displayed above)
The PGRC initiative collects, stores, and shares tissue and DNA samples collected by Antarctic researchers worldwide. We’re excited to announce that through OGL’s Retirement Rescue Collection project, Dr. Lisa Crockett, who recently retired from Ohio University, generously donated her valuable collection of Antarctic icefish to OGL’s PGRC. The new collection will provide invaluable genomic resources for future research.
Icefish: Nature’s White-Blooded Marvels
During her long and productive career, Dr. Lisa Crockett’s research focused on icefish. These fascinating creatures are native to Antarctica and are unique for their white blood, which unlike nearly all other vertebrates, lacks hemoglobin. Icefish also have greatly reduced bone density compared to other fish. Scientists study icefish to understand how life can thrive in extreme conditions like Antarctica’s freezing waters, and to explore potential insights into human health issues such as anemia and osteoporosis.
Dr. Crockett, in collaboration with Dr. Kristin O’Brien of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, investigated icefish’s thermotolerance to learn how they might adapt to the warming waters around Antarctica. Her extensive collection, now housed at OGL, includes 990 samples from eight species, 341 individual fish, and 17 different tissue types, ranging from heart to liver.
Akarotaxis gouldae, a newly-described dragonfish from Antarctica, can be distinguished from its close cousin, A. nudiceps, by the two dark vertical bands of pigment on the body. Image Credit: NSF
Akarotaxis gouldae: A New Antarctic Dragonfish
Another exciting contribution to the PGRC comes from Dr. Thomas Desvignes at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Last year, Dr. Desvignes and colleagues discovered and described a new species of Antarctic dragonfish, Akarotaxis gouldae. The discovery came when the researchers sequenced the larvae of what they thought was Akarotaxis nudiceps. The new species turned out to be a close cousin that diverged from A. nudiceps about 780,000 years ago.
Akarotaxis gouldae can be distinguished by two dark vertical pigment bands on its flanks. This species has one of the most limited distributions of any fish in the Southern Ocean, and produces very few offspring. These characteristics, combined with the negative impacts of a growing Antarctic krill fishery, make A. gouldae extremely vulnerable to environmental changes.
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