John B. Burch
Encyclopedia
John Bayard Burch is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 zoologist, a biology professor at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

, and is the Curator of Mollusks at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. His research interests are broad, and have encompassed not only the anatomy
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...

, systematics
Systematics
Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of terrestrial life, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees...

, and genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

 of mollusks, but also various aspects of zoogeography
Zoogeography
Zoogeography is the branch of the science of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution of animal species.-External links:*: A course outline and collection of Web resources by Dr. Taylor, UBC...

 and parasitology
Parasitology
Parasitology is the study of parasites, their hosts, and the relationship between them. As a biological discipline, the scope of parasitology is not determined by the organism or environment in question, but by their way of life...

. He has engaged in extensive fieldwork around the world, usually collecting mollusks, especially freshwater and terrestrial species. Some sample taken in Tahiti in 1970 have proven to be of importance in efforts to conserve vanishing kinds of the land snail Partula
Partula (genus)
Partula is a genus of air-breathing tropical land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Partulidae.Many species of Partula are known under general common name "Polynesian Tree Snail" or as "Moorean Viviparous Tree Snail".Partulids are spread over of Pacific Ocean islands,...

.

He is a son of biologist Paul Randolph Burch (1898–1958; U.S.A.).

Among other awards, Burch received the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society's Lifetime Achievement Award, and the "John B. Burch Student Scholarship" of the Malacological Society of the Philippines was named in his honor.

Burch is Associate Editor of the important malacological journal Malacologia
Malacologia
Malacologia is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of malacology, the study of mollusks. The journal publishes articles in the fields of molluscan systematics, ecology, population ecology, genetics, molecular genetics, evolution, and phylogenetics.The journal specializes in publishing...

.
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