|
Dr P.A. (Butch) Hulley
Honorary Associate
Marine Biology Fish Collections
Natural History Department
Iziko South African Museum
Box 61, Cape Town 8000
South Africa
Fax: +27 (0)21 481 3993
e-mail: phulley@iziko.org.za
Protein production, including that realized from fishing, is one of
the major factors limiting the growth of the South African economy.
Conventional fish stocks are either fully- or
over-exploited and there is an urgent need to investigate alternate
resources.
Lantern fishes (family Myctophidae) represent one such alternative.
They are the most speciose (65%) and largest component
(600-million metric tonnes) of the World’s mesopelagic fish biomass.
One species (Benthosema
pterotum), known in the Indian Ocean from the Gulf of Oman to
about 25°S off the Mozambique coast, probably represents the largest
single-species fish biomass in the World.
In the eastern South Atlantic, lantern fish biomass has
been estimated at 18-million tonnes. Here, a sporadic purse-seine
fishery has been developed on a shelf-living species (Lampanyctodes hectoris).
It has accounted for up to 10% (42 000 metric tonnes) of the total
South African pelagic fish catch.
Preliminary investigations suggest that catch rates may be
higher for shelf-edge species.
However, in South Africa (as elsewhere) there is a paucity
of knowledge of lantern fishes.
The research objective is therefore to provide information
for both pure science and for fishery management.
Furthermore, our understanding of deep-sea ecological
processes will be increased.
At present, research is focused on the systematics, distribution
and ecology of lantern fishes.
Since there are no endemic South African species, this
research is undertaken within a global context.
At present, work on lantern fishes from the following areas
is being undertaken:
-
southern African region
-
Southern Ocean
-
western Central Pacific (with Dr John Paxton, Australian Museum,
Sydney)
-
equatorial and tropical Central Pacific (with Prof. Guy Duhamel,
Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris)
-
eastern Tropical Atlantic.
A major project to develop a World Catalogue of Lantern Fishes for Fishery Purposes for the Food
& Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is also underway.
see: publications: p.
alexander hulley
|
