The Research in Fish Genetics in Croatia and Former Yugoslavia

This is a review on fish genetics research in Croatia and former Yugoslavia, based on the analyses of all the articles published in four main journals (Ribarstvo Jugoslavije, Morsko ribarstvo, Ichthyologia and Acta Adriatica) since 1945 till disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991. Most of the papers cover the fields on cytogenetics and hybridization (24 and 13 respectively). Eight papers were on fish selection and five on population genetics. Apart from those, five papers were written by foreign authors. Two groups of researchers from the University of Sarajevo were specially active. One of them lead by B e r b e r o v i } and S o f r a d ‘ i j a did extensive work in cytogenetics, analyzing the karyotypes of many fish species, some of them endemic. Another one lead by V u k o v i } , investigated some natural hybrids and created many of them artificially, particulary among cyprinids. These results are presented in a special table. Contrary to the mountainous Bosnia where this type of research was of systematic and ecologic importance, in Croatia whwrw aquaculture was highly developed, the approach was quite different. The scientists from the University of Zagreb, H a b e k o v i } and T u r k , studied the hybridization and selection of important cultured cyprinids. Apart from these scientific groups, many papers were published by A l – S a b t i , who later became world famous in fish cytogenetics. The works of many other authors who contributed with papers in different fields of fish genetics are also described.