Download Atlantic Reference Centre – Overview

For more information contact:
Dr. Gerhard Pohle
ARC Curator of Invertebrates, Huntsman Associate Director
and Senior Research Scientist
ARC Overview
Lou Van Guelpen
ARC Curator of Fishes and Collections Manager
The Atlantic Reference Centre (ARC)—based in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada—is a research museum for Canadian
Atlantic marine life and a centre for biodiversity information and applied environmental research.
In 1984, the Huntsman Marine Science Centre and Fisheries and Ocean Canada (DFO) created the ARC to archive samples
of Canadian Atlantic marine life collected by research surveys and as a source of taxonomic information. Operationally, DFO
provides facilities and partial funding—while the Huntsman provides staffing, additional program funding, and program administration. Together the ARC and DFO collaborate on marine biodiversity research and planning.
Atlantic Reference Centre
Huntsman Marine Science Centre
1 Lower Campus Road
St. Andrews, New Brunswick
Canada E5B 2L7
Phone:
Fax:
email:
Website:
506.529.1203
506.529.1212
[email protected]
huntsmanmarine.ca/arc.shtml
Where to find us:
The ARC is a primary resource supporting Huntsman and DFO scientific objectives. ARC services include sample processing and specimen identification, information, advice, and research for government, universities, museums, private institutions, industry and the public. In addition, ARC scientists train students, technicians and researchers on the identification and
curation of aquatic organisms, and offer a course on the analysis of biological diversity and community structure.
Testimonials to the ARC Collections
Dr. Iain Suthers, The University of New South Wales: “The ARC
is a magnificent resource that is unsurpassed for eastern Canada…
I found the database supporting the samples to be excellent… ARC facilities are
also world-class.”
Dr. Andrew Cooper, DFO, St. Andrews: “The Atlantic Reference Centre is a
distinct and important facility in Atlantic Canada. Their expertise and the collections that are carefully housed within this facility provide a valued service to the
DFO and its research in marine taxonomy and biodiversity conservation.”
Deborah Blood, U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, Seattle: “ARC loans of
Triglops larvae provided sufficient diversity to expand my research from a Pacific
northwest focus to include most North American Triglops species.”
Courtesy Google Maps
The ARC is housed in a 400-square-metre facility.
There are nearly 140,000 lots of specimens in the
collection, from marine algae to large fishes; specimens are available on loan and for visiting users.
Huntsman Marine
Science Centre
A facility for marine biodiversity.
ARC
St. Andrews
Biological Station
The ARC Museum Resources
Collecting efforts by DFO and many other institutions and
individuals since the 1920s, and by Canadian ichthyologists Wilfred Templeman and W. B. Scott from the 1940s
to 1970s, have made the ARC Canada’s preeminent research museum for Atlantic biota.
Other ARC Collaborations
The ARC and DFO Partnership
The ARC offers scientific expertise to
DFO on taxonomy, biodiversity, literature, field sampling, sample processing, and specimen identification and
preservation.
(www.barcoding.si.edu/); a CMB project in collaboration with
Dalhousie University
Scope: Developing DNA barcodes as a taxonomic tool for the
832 species of Canadian Atlantic fishes for online distribution
via FishBOL and GenBank
The ARC’s growing collections now house 140,000 catalogued and computerized lots of Canadian Atlantic specimens. There is especially strong taxonomic and geographic representation in many groups: polychaetes, molluscs, shallow-water and deep-sea crustaceans, fish parasites, freshwater insects, marine fish eggs and larvae (the
largest North American collection according to a survey of
the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists),
and deep-sea mid-water and bottom fishes.
The ARC also assists DFO with sample processing and specimen identification (e.g. northeast Newfoundland shelf zooplankton, 1994 – present; Scotian Shelf Ichthyoplankton Program, 1977 – 1982; Bay of Fundy Larval Herring Program,
1978 – 1999).
This wealth of taxonomic, geographic, and historic collections of Canadian Atlantic biota presents unique and exciting research opportunities in taxonomy, biology, ecology,
early life history, biodiversity, biodiversity informatics, biogeography, and community structure of marine organisms.
NaGISA (Natural Geography In Shore Areas)
An investigation on coastal benthic community structure
The ARC is the Atlantic Office of this global Census of Marine
Life (CoML) program (www.nagisa.coml.org/
north_atlantic.htm)
Scope: A review and case study of structural and functional
changes circumstantially linked to intensive marine finfish
aquaculture
Scope: a census and monitoring of species in nearshore habitats of Atlantic Canada and western Africa
Ocean Biogeographic Information System
Researchers and educators may access ARC specimens
by loan or visit. Information on ARC specimens is available
online through the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (www.iobis.org).
Visiting researchers are welcome at the ARC. Short and
long term visits are encouraged for graduate and postdoctoral students, university and government researchers, and
for sabbaticals. Excellent laboratory space and facilities
are provided. In addition, accommodation, research vessels, and field equipment are available for rent.
Applicants for ARC internships and summer student positions are encouraged as funding opportunities arise.
Together, ARC and DFO researchers collaborate on projects
related to the wealth of biological diversity in Canada’s Atlantic
waters. Major projects include:
Regional marine species registers
A CMB and CoML Gulf of Maine Area Program project
Scope: A compilation of comprehensive species lists, or registers, for regions of the northwest North Atlantic Ocean
(www.marinebiodiversity.ca/nonNARMS/) with a goal to develop national standards for DFO taxonomy
Benthic macrofaunal changes from fish mariculture
The Gulf of Maine Biodiversity Discovery Corridor
A program of the Centre of Marine Biodiversity (CMB)
(www.marinebiodiversity.ca/cmb) and CoML’s Gulf of Maine
Area Program (www.usm.maine.edu/gulfofmaine-census/)
Scope: community structure in shelf and deep-sea benthic
habitats; biodiversity literature for Discovery Corridor waters
and knowledge gaps; archiving of specimens in the ARC
DNA “barcoding” of Canadian Atlantic fishes
A Fish Barcode of Life (FishBOL) program of the
Consortium for the Barcode of Life initiative
A global alliance of the CoML program (www.iobis.org/)
Scope: standardizing and sharing online marine biogeographic data of multiple partners to enable large scale
integrative analyses
Gulf of Maine Ocean Data Partnership
Gulf of Maine ocean data providers (www.gomodp.org/)
Scope: standardizing and sharing online oceanographic
data of multiple partners to enable Gulf-wide integrated
investigations
The ARC also serves various Canadian and US
federal and provincial/state departments and agencies, universities, NGOs, industry, and the public.
Recent examples include:
Processing of plankton samples from the Arctic
and Antarctic oceans
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Developing protocols for monitoring the environment under deep-water salmon aquaculture
sites using a Remotely Operated Vehicle
Industrial Research Assistance Program,
NB Environmental Trust Fund, and Gulf of
Maine Council on the Marine Environment
Assessment of Head Harbour Passage, NB to
determine the optimal site for in-stream tidal
electrical power generation
NB Dept. of Energy
Characterization of the biodiversity and environment of the lower Bay of Fundy toward a strategic environmental assessment for in-stream
tidal electrical power generation
NB Dept. of Energy /Jacques Whitford
Processing of plankton and sediment samples
for all life stages of soft-shelled clam in waters
off Point Lepreau, NB
Eastern Charlotte Waterways
Processing of plankton samples from coastal
Maine waters for fish egg and larvae
Maine Dept. of Marine Resources.