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

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...

, a biology professor at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, 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 biology concerned with the study of the 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 science, having it ...

, systematics, 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 Augustinian friar wor ...

of mollusks, 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, mor ...

and parasitology. 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, evolu ...

''.
Malacologia masthead

Taxa named in his honor

* ''

Meghimatium burchi ''Meghimatium burchi'' is a species of small air-breathing land slug, a Terrestrial animal, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Philomycidae and the superfamily Arionacea, the roundback slugs. The Specific name (zoology), specif ...

'' 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