Quick Facts
Biography
John Bayard Burch (born 1929) is an American zoologist, a biology professor at the University of Michigan, 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, systematics, and genetics of mollusks, but also various aspects of zoogeography and parasitology. 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.
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 malacological journal Malacologia.
Taxa named in his honor
- Meghimatium burchi Tsai & Wu, 2008
- Tsai, C.-L.; Wu, S.-K. (2008). "A new Meghimatium slug (Pulmonata: Philomycidae) from Taiwan" (PDF). Zoological Studies. 47 (6): 759–766.