MARINE BIODIVERSITY CENTER

The Marine Biodiversity Center is the Museum's core facility for the curation of marine and freshwater invertebrates from worms to crabs, jellyfish to sponges, sea stars to squid. The MBC serves as a center for curatorial excellence in the Invertebrate Zoology Department, the largest division in the Research and Collections Branch of the Natural History Museum. The collections document and archive the enormous diversity of the invertebrate fauna both regionally and worldwide.

These collections are directly leveraged to answer questions about biodiversity and climate change and are used to develop environmental (eDNA) techniques. These capabilities enhance and expand our ability to explore, discover, and monitor invertebrate diversity using modern molecular techniques.

Scientists in the Museum's Marine Biodiversity Center use data from the existing specimens in the collection and are applying it to research like Diversity Initiative for the Southern California Ocean (DISCO) to better understand the animals and complex ecosystems and how they change over time.

Support the museum's ongoing research and the ongoing preservation of these valuable collections by making a donation today.