PEET: Bivalves - Research, Training, Electronic Dissemination of Data

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9978119 BielerBivalvia (= Lamellibranchia, Pelecypoda) is a group of great living and fossil diversity, and one of immense economic importance. There are few biologists specializing in investigating bivalve diversity and the largest (and ecologically as well as economically most important) bivalves have remained among the least understood. In a joint program involving biologists and laboratories from the around the world, R. Bieler, a molluscan systematist at the Field Museum of Natural History and P. M. Mikkelsen, a molluscan systematist at the American Museum of Natural History, combine their expertise to train a new generation of bivalve workers and significantly to advance the systematics of the group. The research will concentrate on the marine family Veneridae, a group of bivalves with more than 500 living species that form a key component in the world's clam fisheries. The project will train students at the graduate and postdoctoral levels and involves a wide range of approaches and techniques ranging from field collecting and comparative anatomical studies to DNA sequencing. Other educational efforts will target undergraduate trainees and various audiences that can be reached through web publications and museum programming. Promoting bivalve research worldwide is an important goal of this project. To make information about the species and associated data available to specialists and non-specialists alike, various bivalve databases, images, and keys will be developed for electronic web dissemination.