John Bayard Burch (August 12, 1929 – June 3, 2021) was an American

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

, a biology professor at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

, and 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 () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

systematics Systematics is the study of the diversification of living forms, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees (synonyms: phylogenetic trees, phylogenies). Phy ...

, and

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

mollusks Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The num ...

, but also various aspects of

zoogeography Zoogeography is the branch of the science of biogeography that is concerned with geographic distribution (present and past) of animal species. As a multifaceted field of study, zoogeography incorporates methods of molecular biology, genetics, mo ...

and

parasitology Parasitology is the study of parasites, their host (biology), hosts, and the relationship between them. As a List of biology disciplines, biological discipline, the scope of parasitology is not determined by the organism or environment in questio ...

. He has engaged in extensive fieldwork around the world, usually collecting mollusks, especially freshwater and terrestrial species. Some samples taken in Tahiti in 1970 have proven to be of importance in efforts to conserve vanishing kinds of the land snail '' Partula''. He is a son of biologist Paul Randolph Burch (1898–1958; U.S.A.).Eugene V. Coan, Alan R. Kabat & Richard E. Petit, (15 February) 2009
''2,400 years of malacology, 6th ed.''
830 pp. + 32 pp. nnex of Collations American Malacological Society. 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 was Associate Editor of the malacological journal ''

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, an ...

''.
Malacologia masthead

Taxa named in his honor

* '' Meghimatium burchi'' Tsai & Wu, 2008

Bibliography

* (1960). ''Some snails and slugs of quarantine significance to the United States''. U.S. Dept. Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service 82(1): 73 pp. * (1962). ''How to Know the Eastern Land Snails''. Wm. C. Brown Pub. 214 pp. * ''Freshwater unionacean clams (Mollusca: Pelecypoda) of North America.'' Biota of Freshwater Ecosystems, Identification Manual No. 11. U.S. Gov. Printing Office. 114 p. * (1992). "Freshwater snails of the University of Michigan Biological Station Area". ''Walkeriana'' 6(15). (with Younghun Jung) * (1998). ''Bivalvia I''. 145pp. Soc. Experimental and Descriptive Malacology. (editor, with William H. Heard)] * (2007). ''Tahitian tree snail mitochondrial clades survived recent mass extirpation''. ''Current Biology'' 17(13). (with Taehwan Lee and four other authors)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burch, John B. 1929 births 2021 deaths 21st-century American zoologists American malacologists University of Michigan faculty