Oryzias sinensis Genome sequencing and assembly. Oryzias sinensis

The unprecedented deterioration of the aquatic environments, with the economic growth, has been occurred in China during the past decades. Ecosystem degradation can be seen in many rivers, and even worse in some rivers where it is difficult to find the presence of fish. Toxicity investigations of contaminants in aquatic environments on fishes are of great concern in recent years. The laboratory's investigation on the toxicity of environmental pollutants provides a good basis for the monitoring and control of the field environment. But there is often caught in a dilemma in ecological risk assessment when linking the effects found in model animal in the laboratory and the phenomena observed in wild fishes in the field due to species differences in China. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) and Japanese medaka are widely used in toxicological studies in laboratories in China. While what embarrassing is these species does not inhabit in China and cannot used to link the effects found in the laboratory and those observed in the field. Field caging experiments are sometimes useable, but the eggs or offspring of model fish would accidentally be released into the environment leading to alien invasion. Here we select Chinese medaka (Oryzias sinensis), a close relative species of Japanese medaka, as model and established its cultivation methods.