Evolution of coastal/freshwater fishes in northern Far-east

Studies of evolution of coastal/freshwater fishes in northern Far-east have been conducted during the three fiscal years of 1994 to 1996, under the support of Grant, International Scientific Research Program, Project No.06041004 of Ministry of Education (Monbusho), Japan. The purpose of this project is to elucidate the constitution of ichthyofauna in Russian Far-east region and the evolutionary pattern of those fishes. Studies of this project have been conducted by dividing scientists involved into two groups in convenience for putting expedition into practice. The first, marine-fish group is consisted of specialists of taxonomy and phylogenetic systematics on fishes, and concerned on the ichthyofauna of coastal fishes in Russian Far-east region. The expeditions of this group was enforced on the southern Primorsky Region in 1994 and 1996, and on the Shantar Islands of northern part of Okhotsk Sea in 1995. The second, freshwater-fish group is concerned on the evolution of the freshwater fishes in Russian Far-east region on basis of biochemical genetic approach in addition with morphological analysis. The expeditions of this group was enforced on the southern Primorsky and Sakhalin in 1994, on Magadan Region in 1995, and on Korea and Kamchatka Region on 1995. As the result of all expeditions, the fishes, 103 species and about 7,700 specimens, were collected from Russian Far-east Region. The specimens for systematic studies have been deposited in Faculty of Fisheries, Hokkaido University, at Hakodate, and National Science Museum (Natural History), at Tokyo