Douglass F. Hoese


Douglass Fielding "Doug" Hoese is an American ichthyologist and marine biologist who has worked extensively in Australia. He is frequently cited as Douglass F. Hoese.

Biography

Hoese is the son of Adolph Hermann Hoese and Feliciana Douglas Dickson. He received a B.A. in zoology from the University of Texas in 1964, and earned his Ph.D. in marine biology at the University of California, San Diego in 1971 with the dissertation A Revision of the Eastern Pacific Species of the Gobiid Fish Genus Gobiosoma: With a Discussion of Relationships of the Genus.
From 1965 to 1970, Hoese worked part-time as a research assistant in fish systematics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In 1971, he was appointed assistant curator of fishes at the Australian Museum in Sydney. That same year, the Australian Society for Fish Biology was officially founded, and in 1973 Hoese was elected its third president after John Sydney Lake and Gilbert Percy Whitley. He also served as secretary from 1975 to 1977 and as a council member in 1977 and 1978.
From 1976 to 1981, Hoese was curator of fishes at the Australian Museum, but also held various other positions as the museum reorganized its staff and research groups. He was head of the Marine Group in 1981, scientific officer from 1982 to 1988, chair of the Vertebrate Zoology department from 1983 to 1987, principal research scientist from 1988 to 1999, head of Vertebrate Zoology and Scientific Services from 1989 to 1998, and director of Science from 1999 to 2004. He retired in 2004 but continues as a research associate at the museum.
Hoese’s research focuses primarily on the systematics of Gobiodei, a group with over 2,500 species. This group represents about 10% of all known recent fish species, about 15% of all reef-dwelling fishes in Australia, and 20–40% of species in Australian estuaries. His studies have provided an improved taxonomic framework for gobioids, which has facilitated other research. Over more than four decades, he has compiled a database of all described and recognized genera and species, as well as an extensive bibliography of the group.
His taxonomic research has concentrated on three main areas:
  • Taxonomic revisions of genera, especially Glossogobius and Eleotris.
  • Defining genera and their relationships: earlier classifications recognized many monotypic Indo-Pacific gobioid genera with little agreement in the literature. Hoese’s studies reduced the number of accepted genera by about 30%, resulting in broad consensus in current literature.
  • Higher classification and relationships of major taxonomic groups. To support this, Hoese assembled a large specimen collection, including osteological material and radiographs of about 70% of recognized genera.
In 1981, Hoese and John R. Paxton co-organized the first International Conference on Indo-Pacific Fishes at the Australian Museum. This highly successful conference series has continued every four years. In 2009, the first joint conference with the ASFB was held in Fremantle.
Hoese has co-authored the descriptions of 136 fish species. In 2010, with Helen K. Larson, he described Priolepis akihitoi, a goby named in honor of Emperor Akihito of Japan.

Eponymous taxa

Thirteen species have been named in Hoese’s honor, including: Alabes hoesei Allomogurnda hoesei Dermatopsis hoesei Eviota hoesei Glossogobius hoesei Istigobius hoesei Koumansetta hoesei Pseudogobius hoesei Schismatogobius hoesei Silhouettea hoesei Starksia hoesei Stenogobius hoesei
  • ''Trimma hoesei''