ISSN 0704-3716 r---- I Canadian Translation of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences No. 5607 Arctic Chars The structure of population systems and prospects for economic use -' K.A. Savvaitova Original title: Arkticheskie gol'tsy (struktura populyatsionnykh sistem, perspektivy khozyaistvennogo ispol'zovaniya) Published by: Moscow, VO "Agrompromizdat", 1989 Original language: Russian Available from: Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information National Research Council Ottawa, Ontario, Canada KlA 0S2 1993 246 typescript pages °sparrow* of 1he Sat:rate), Secret:red ditu of sense of Canada cki Canada TRANSLATION LETTERHEAD - PAPIER À EN-TE TE 141 MULTILINGUAL TRANSLATION DIRECTORATE DIRC-CTION DE LA TRADUCTION MULTILINGUE TRANSLATION BUREAU BUREAU DE LA TRADUCTION CdoMotor MN No. - Doper Met • Weser, - DleislonlBrencà - Ohislonetrocdon City - VIM Belem= du dernandar DFO IM&TS Ottawa Transtabon Request No. - Lanese* - Lar9» %MINIX (1 inillis) - Treducee.r (Maio') N• de la Monde de tnefflon 3850599. Russian-English PIC ARCTIC CHARS (The Structure of Population Systems and Prospects for Econotnic Use) by K.A. Savvaitova UDC 639.215.8 (98) Savvaitova K.A. Arctic Chars (the structure of population systems and prospects for economic use). Moscow: Agropromizdat, 1989. - 223 pages. ISBN 5-10-000987-X An idea is given of ecotypes as the main structural units of fish population systems living in high latitude bodies of water. Numerous populations of Arctic chars are described, as is their systematic position. The importance of developing measures of managing fishing and artificial breeding of Arctic chars is shown. For fish industry researchers. 33 tables. 53 illustrations. Bibliography - 410 titles. Editor: S.B. Makarova SEC S • ISO (90 Oil 2 INTRODUCTION Recently, Arctic chars of the genus Salvelinus have been attracting more and more attention from researchers both in our country and abroad. This interest is detertnined on the one hand by the great economic importance in a number of regions of these highly numerous, valuable salmonid fishes and, on the other hand, by the fact that these fish are an excellent model subject for the study of microevolution and the emergence of forms. The study of chars is also extremely interesting because chars are the most typical representatives of northern ecosystems and can serve as indicators of the condition of these ecosystems and as a very important subject of ecological monitoring. The large phenetic variety of chars and their wide distribution make researching them difficult. In the literature there was until recently only casual, fragmentary information on chars living in different regions; moreover, the information was obtained by different authors who were often not specialists in these fish. Chars of the genus Salvelinus have a circumpolar distribution and are found beginning from Iceland and the west coast of Norway to the east to Greenland. Their natural habitat also extends to the south (the lakes of Swedish Lapland and the Alps, the Tumen'-Ula River and the states of Oregon and California in the United States) [24]. They are featured to the Salmonidae family. Until 1832, researchers involved in systematizing salmons included chars in the genus Salmo and did not study them as an independent group of fish [282]. In 1832, Nilsson separated the chars into a Salve/mi group and, in 1836, Richardson described the subgenus Baione . Chars were separated into an independent group on the basis of the absence of teeth on the manubrium of the vomer (unlike the Salmo genus). Chars have teeth only on the head of the vomer; they are separated from the teeth on the palatine bones by a space and are retained for the entire life of the fish. In subsequent years, many authors started to use the name given by Richardson as a genus name [21, 315, 367, 368, 369 et al]. At the present time, the independence of the genus Salvelinus may be considered as generally accepted. A few Scandinavian scientists, who feature the chars to gnus Salmo [354, 355 et al], are an exception. The study of the systematization of chars in Europe and North America began a very long time ago and it is possible here to separate two main points of view and trends which, sometimes prevailing concurrently and sometimes alternatively, have been exhibited over the entire period of study of this group of fishes. Some authors thought that only one or two types of char existed and * The figures in the right-hand margin indicate page numbers of the original (Tr.). 3 their diversity was viewed as a manifestation of variability [280, 290, 312, 382]. Other authors featured all diversity of chars to the existence of different species [302, 316, 367, 368, 371]. These authors described many species of chars without reference to their sexual, seasonal, age and ecological variability. As a rule, new species were described with little information, without taking into account biological features or the ecological forms they belonged to. This point of view g-radually became predominant. As a result, the following began to be featured to the genus Salmo: S. umbla, S. salvelinus, S. alpinus, S. nivalis Gunther, S. killinensis Gunther, S. wilughbii Günther, S. perisii Gunther, S. rutilus Nilsson, S. carbonarius Strom, S. grayi Günther, S. colii Gunther, S. salmarinus L, S. schrenkii Focinger, S. monostrictus Heckel et Kner, S. distichus Heckel, S. ventricosus Nilsson, S. salvelini-stagnalis Smitt, S. lepechini Gmelin, S. autumnalis Pallas, S. struanensis Gibson-Maitland The following began to be featured to the genus Salvelinus: S. gracillimus Regan, S. inframundus Regan, S. maxillaris Regan, S. mallochii Regan, S. lonsdalii Regan, S. trevelyani Regan, S. fimbriatus Regan, S. charfii Regan, S. obtusus Regan, i.e., 29 species of anadromous and lalce chars from the waters of the British Isles, Spitzbergen, Iceland and Europe. In North America, the following were described in a similar manner: S. lordii Gunther, S. campbehi Suckley, S. heanzii Richardson, S. alipes Richardson, S. nitidus Richardson, S. hoodi Richardson, S. fontinalis Mitchill, S. hudsonicus Suckley, S. oquassa Girard, S. parkei Suckley, S. alpinus L, S. ma/ma Walbaum, S. namaycush Walbaum, S. siscowet Agassiz, S. aureolus Bean, etc. [302, 316, 367, 368, 371]. However, as data was collected on the biology of chars and their variability and as new knowledge on the species emerged, the point of view that chars belonged to a few polymorphous species began to win out. Even the advocates of opposite viewpoints began to doubt the validity of the system they had created [369]. More and more researchers began to come to the conclusion that the majority of the species described earlier were synonymous [262, 288, 289, 366, 406]. This period may be considered to some extent as completed for the chars of Europe where the abundance of species described is mainly reduced to one species, S. alpinus (L), represented by a few forms, or to three species: S. alpinus, S. salvelinus and S. stagnalis, the status of which is under discussion. In America and Canada, most researchers today recognize as independent species only S. alpinus, S. ma/ma, S. fontinalis and S. namaycush [268]. In the waters of Siberia and the Far East 12 species were once described: S. alpinus, S. drjagini Logaschov, S. taimyricus Michin, S. boganidae Berg, S. tolmachoffi Berg, S. jacuticus Borisov, S. cherskii Drjagin, S. neiva Taranetz, S. andriaschevi Berg, S. taranetzi Kaganovslcy, S. malma, S. leucomaenis (Pallas). In the waters of Japan, the following are known: S. miyabei Oschima, S. ma/ma sachalinensis Oschima, S. leucomaenis, S. leucomaenisfluvialis Oschima, S. pluvius (Hildendorj) and S. japonicus Oschima [361, 362]. 4 The taxonomic position of chars is the subject of constant ongoing discussions. They have become particularly lively of late. The reason for this lies mainly in the fact that, as a result of more serious and in-depth study of chars, researchers have run into the fact that differentiated sympatric forms exist and the necessity of interpreting this; new methods have appeared revealing a high level of polymorphism and allowing ambiguous conclusions to be made. At the same time, the study of populations was continued from typological positions. All of this led to the revival of systematize and subdivide viewpoints. The number of species started to increase once again. The disagreements go beyond taxonomie issues; they touch upon problems of the emergence of forms, microevolution and systematization in a broad sense. Therefore, it is expedient to first examine the morphological features of char groupings and their interrelation within separate regions, in order to then compare them in the geographic sense, evaluate the systematic position, and study the processes of the emergence of forms and microevolution. For an in-depth study of chars, it is very important to have research conducted throughout their entire natural habitat and based on unified approaches and methods. Related in the monograph is a complex hierarchy of population systems in many widely settled, ecologically plastic genera and species of animals. Between the components of these systems is a different degree of phenetic divergence, reproductive isolation and phenetic isolation. Some groupings are on an intraspecies level and are only occurring forms of the species; others have occupied the intermediate position of semispecies or diverged significantly and reached a species or superspecies class [65, 132]. These structures have still not been studied much in fish, although learning about them is extremely important. Data on the structure of different class groupings and their variability should be the basis of taxonomic research, the knowledge of the processes of speciation and phylogeny of fishes, the description of species composition of ichthyofauna, the structure of faunae and the principles of the emergence of forms of faunistic complexes and the structure of ecosystems at different latitudes. The study of the structure of population systems of fish and their variability is important for the evaluation of the adaptive properties which ensure their existence now and in the future.