Taxonomy, Evolution, and Biogeography

The evolutionary history of various groups of fishes is of critical importance to our understanding of the breadth of diversity in extant fishes and encompasses a wide range of fundamental taxonomic categories—populations, stocks, management units, species, and higher taxonomic categories. Addressing questions regarding phylogenetic and population-genetic relationships or the interrelationships of species and populations in a biogeographic context informs fisheries management and conservation. Similarly, taxonomic studies add to our understanding of fish evolution, interrelationships, and biodiversity. This Section aims to improve our understanding of the taxonomy, evolution, and biogeography of fishes through the presentation of high-quality original research and comprehensive review papers. Our focus is on fishes, whether inhabiting freshwater, estuarine or marine systems, and various approaches including traditional taxonomic and more modern molecular approaches.

The scope of this Section includes studies on:

• The phylogenetic relationships of extant or extinct fishes at all taxonomic levels;
• New theories and approaches applicable to the systematics and phylogeny of fishes;
• The description of new species;
• The historical and contemporary ranges of extinct and extant fishes;
• Genetic studies of value to fisheries’ management, biogeography, phylogeography, and conservation;
• The application of next-generation sequencing approaches to questions involving taxonomy, evolution, and biogeography;
• Novel and modern approaches to data acquisition and/or analysis and their application.