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Morphology and ecology of Pacific sturgeons

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Abstract

The six North Pacific members of the genus Acipenser have generally similar environmental requirements and share several specific morphological features. This Pacific group consists of green sturgeon, Acipenser medirostris, Sakhalin sturgeon, A. mikadoi, white sturgeon, A. transmontanus, Chinese sturgeon, A. sinensis, Dabry’s sturgeon, A. dabryanus and Amur sturgeon, A. schrenkii. A qualitative morphological examination of these species revealed synapomorphic characters that suggest close phyolgenetic relationships resulting from common ancestry of eastern and western species within the Pacific Rim. An evolutionary taxonomic approach, considering a reduction of characters from east to west, would suggest an Asian ancestry for all Pacific sturgeons. In contrast however, a phylogenetic approach using derived character states suggests a North American ancestry. Besides a common ancestry for Chinese and American sturgeons, the taxonomic status of A. mikadoi is discussed.

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Notes

  1. http://www.cws-scf.ec.gc.ca/enforce/pdf/Sturgeon/CITES_Sturgeons_Guide.pdf

  2. http://web.inife.it/progetti/geneweb/sturgeon.html.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the staff and scientists from the following institutions: Hungarian Institute of Aquaculture in Sarvas, Hungary; the Okhotsk Hatchery in Sakhalin, and the Center for Aquatic Biology and Aquaculture, University of California, Davis; the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuchan, and the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fisheries Sciences, Jingzhou and the Saint Petersburg Museum of Natural History. We thank Patrick Foley for the photograph of the Humboldt Bay juvenile green sturgeon. We are particularly in debt to Vadim Birstein who painstakingly corrected and explained numerous concepts of sturgeon genetics. We thank all the individuals involved with organizing the conference.

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  1. Central Laboratory of Fish Reproduction, 24/52 Prof. Popov Str., Saint Petersburg, 197022, Russia

    Evgenii N. Artyukhin

  2. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602 , USA

    Paul Vecsei & Douglas L. Peterson

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  1. Evgenii N. Artyukhin
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  2. Paul Vecsei
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  3. Douglas L. Peterson
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Correspondence to Douglas L. Peterson.

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Artyukhin, E.N., Vecsei, P. & Peterson, D.L. Morphology and ecology of Pacific sturgeons. Environ Biol Fish 79, 369–381 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-006-9157-6

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