SPECIMEN BANKING OF MARINE ORGANISMS IN THE UNITED-STATES - CURRENT STATUS AND LONG-TERM PROSPECTIVE

A major part of the activities conducted over the last decade by the N ational Biomonitoring Specimen Bank (NBSB) has involved the archival o f marine specimens collected by ongoing environmental monitoring progr ams. These archived specimens include bivalves, marine sediments, and fish tissues collected by the National status and Trends and the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Damage Assessment programs, and marine mammal tissue s collected by the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program and the Alaska Marine Mammal Tissue Archival Project. In addition to supporting these programs, the specimens have been used to investigate circumpolar patterns of chlorinated hydrocarbon concentrations, genet ic separation of marine animal stocks, baseline levels of essential an d nonessential elements in marine mammals, and the potential risk to h uman consumers in the Arctic from anthropogenic contaminants found in local subsistence foods. The NBSB specimens represent a resource that has the potential for addressing future issues of marine environmental quality and ecosystem changes through retrospective analysis; however , an ecosystem-based food web approach would maximize this potential. The current status of the NBSB activities related to the banking of ma rine organisms is presented and discussed, the long-term prospective o f these activities is presented, and the importance of an ecosystem-ba sed food web monitoring approach to the value of specimen banking is d iscussed.