9317881 Wiley The acanthomorph fishes are the largest group of vertebrate animals (13,290) species). This group includes some of the most important commercial and sports fishes such as tunas, basses, founders, cods, and billfishes. Unfortunately, little is known, or agreed upon, concerning the relationships among the more than 13 orders and numerous suborders of acanthomorphs. This hampers our ability to understand many aspects of the biology of these fishes. Some of these aspects will undoubtedly have commercial as well as purely scientific consequences. We propose to use morphological data and molecular data derived from DNA sequencing to study the relationships among acantrhomorph fishes. Morphological data used by previous investigators to arrive at conflicting hypotheses of relationships will be re-evaluated and new data will be collected. A pilot study is presented that demonstrates the feasibility for using DNA sequence data to further resolve these relationships ***
