Developing a Pacific Community Marine Specimen Bank

1. The Pacific Community (SPC) is looking to establish a regional specimen bank for marine flora and fauna. A specimen bank is a safe repository for biological samples (e.g. fish muscle tissue, otoliths). Specimen bank samples are analysed to provide critical information to support natural resource management (e.g. the age and growth rate of fish as a key input to stock assessments, genetic analyses for stock structure). Maintained over the long-term, historic samples can be compared with recent samples to understand important changes in key biological processes over time (e.g. increased mercury levels in fish due to climate change).