Taking the Photos of the Voucher Specimens

Vouchers

• Prepare the fish vouchers
• Taking the tissue sample for DNA extraction

Taking the Photos

• Photograph life or preserved fish in the field
• Photograph fish vouchers in collections
• Taking the Photos of snails and bivalves
• Taking the Photos of mayfly larvae and (Sub)Imagines
• Taking the Photos of the Voucher Specimens

Photos of the voucher specimens from which the CO1 sequence was or will be obtained are an obligatory element in the FREDIE project. While it sounds logic and easy to just choose an individual specimen from out of a catch, take a tissue sample and photograph this individual, there are many pitfalls. In many cases tissues and specimens were not collected following the barcoding approach and the tissue sample is taken from a very small specimen who is more or less destructed by taking away the tissue for DNA extraction. Additional, well preserved individuals from the same catch might be stored separately and might act as associated vouchers in species of indisputable identification at the sampling locality.