Research and Curation Projects

SIO-BIC contributes to research on invertebrate diversity, including new species descriptions, global phylogenies, population genetics, and biogeography. BIC specimens are used extensively by the lab of the SIO-BIC Curator, Prof. Greg Rouse.

Current focus areas include:

Research

• Southern California DDT dumpsites: identifying and preserving benthic invertebrates associated with sediments and barrels from historical DDT dumpsites in the Santa Monica and San Pedro Basins
• Methane seeps: describing the biodiversity and biogeography of these chemosynthesis-based ecosystems along the eastern Pacific, from Oregon to Costa Rica

Curation

• Collection rescues: accepting and integrating collections from eminent deep-sea researchers upon retirement
  • Verena Tunnicliffe (University of Victoria) and Bob Vrijenhoek (MBARI), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Collections in Support of Biological Research (CSBR) Program
  • Craig Smith (University of Hawai'i at Manoa), funded by the California Institute for Biodiversity, Collection Rescue Grant
• Digitization: as a participant in the NSF-funded DigIn project (“Documenting Marine Biodiversity Through Digitization of Invertebrate Collections”), SIO-BIC aims to make all specimen records and representative images publicly discoverable online, including tens of thousands of legacy specimens with no previous digital presence
  • In addition to the continually updated Scripps-hosted SIO-BIC database, archived versions of the SIO-BIC dataset are available via GBIF and iDigBio and will be updated by the completion of DigIn