A Nanaimo manB次元官网网址檚 140,000-specimen mollusk collection has found a new home at a B.C. biodiversity museum.
Bill Merilees, a retired B.C. Parks regional information officer, collected mollusk shells ranging from large clams to tiny snails found on the B.C. shorelines for nearly 50 years. In that time he amassed and catalogued more than 140,000 shells, and possibly the most extensive collection of micro mollusks ever gathered from B.C.B次元官网网址檚 coast.
MerileesB次元官网网址檚 interest in mollusks was sparked when he was five years old by his father who gave him a clam shell, but his hobby of collecting shells took off after he moved to Nanaimo in 1978.
B次元官网网址淚 really had a glorious opportunity, because my job with B.C. Parks took me up and down the Island, all over the placeB次元官网网址次元官网网址� he said. B次元官网网址淚B次元官网网址檇 have this spoon and IB次元官网网址檇 find a nice rock at low tide and scrape all the slime and goop off it, put it into a plastic bag and bring it home and put it in [my wifeB次元官网网址檚] freezer, which of course, wasnB次元官网网址檛 very popular.B次元官网网址�
Merilees would thaw the samples, screen out shells between one and five millimetres in size and then ,with a pair of watchmakerB次元官网网址檚 forceps, sit for hours peering through a microscope and picking out the B次元官网网址渕icro mollusksB次元官网网址� which heB次元官网网址檇 preserve in vials.
B次元官网网址淭his came about in an interesting way,B次元官网网址� Merilees said. B次元官网网址淲hat the Canadian Wildlife Service were trying to find out was what some of our shorebirds are feeding on. TheyB次元官网网址檇 analyze the stomach [contents], but they had nothing to identify the little snails they found, so I started gravitating to getting smaller, smaller and finally ended up getting down to what I call micro mollusks.B次元官网网址�
Merilees gathered specimens from Vancouver Island, Haida Gwaii and Washington state, accompanied at times by his friend, marine biologist Rick Harbo.
MerileesB次元官网网址檚 collection, stored in wooden cabinets he built, fills a bedroom in his Departure Bay-area home. Vials containing micro mollusks fill just one of dozens of cabinet drawers, yet account for about 126,000 of the estimated 140,000-specimen collection. Each sample is accompanied by particulars, such as date, time, location, tide conditions, surface type (rock or sand), size of scraping, number of species and how many of each were found. He also used methods to preserve specimen DNA, which might one day help further species identification efforts.
B次元官网网址淧eople would say, B次元官网网址榶ou silly bugger,B次元官网网址� and IB次元官网网址檇 say, B次元官网网址榶ouB次元官网网址檙e quite right, IB次元官网网址檓 bloody crazy, absolutely stupid,B次元官网网址� but the fact is nobody in B.C. has ever done anything quite like thisB次元官网网址次元官网网址� he said. B次元官网网址淲hat youB次元官网网址檝e got here is a snapshot in time of a particular day, particular tide, season B次元官网网址� You could go back to these areas in the future and you can do a comparison and no one has ever, to my knowledge, in British Columbia or even on the west coast of North America, done something quite like that.B次元官网网址�
Merilees said some of his specimens are new to the field of mollusk study, but havenB次元官网网址檛 been formally recognized. Samples were sent to James Hamilton McLean, a malacologist and former curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who included some of them in a 2,000-page monograph he compiled. Unfortunately McLean died in 2016 before it could be published.
Merilees, now 81, stopped making collection trips in 2020, but he hopes his donation, bound for the University of British ColumbiaB次元官网网址檚 Beaty Biodiversity Museum, will become a learning resource for future biology students.
Sheila Byers, a marine biologist and former interpreter for the Beaty museum, and Colin MacLeod, a zoologist with UBCB次元官网网址檚 Biodiversity Research Centre and museum curatorial assistant, spent Tuesday, July 20, packing up MerileesB次元官网网址檚 collection. It will be stored in isolation for three weeks to prevent any potential insect infestation from escaping into the museum before it is catalogued into the museumB次元官网网址檚 online database and some of it will be put on display.
MerileesB次元官网网址檚 collection, the two scientists said, is important for making comparisons between species in collection locations 50 years ago versus today and to help people understand the huge diversity of local marine life.
B次元官网网址淎 lot of people donB次元官网网址檛 realize how beautiful and diverse local species can be, so I think this collection gives a huge opportunity to understand their own marine life by this hugely diverse collection,B次元官网网址� Byers said.
She said Merilees did an B次元官网网址渁mazing jobB次元官网网址� of record-keeping.
B次元官网网址淎nother key thing is just the amazing amount of data Bill has associated with these specimens,B次元官网网址� MacLeod said. B次元官网网址淚n terms of climate change or any large-scale change to the ocean, having a date of collection associated means that we can go back to that site and collect again and maybe that species will have disappeared as ranges shift, caused by climate change or harvesting B次元官网网址� so just having these reference points back in time are invaluable for museums and also for conservation biologists who want to record how things are changing.B次元官网网址�
MerileesB次元官网网址檚 wish for his collection to be become a teaching resource will also be realized.
B次元官网网址淭hereB次元官网网址檚 so many interesting species in here B次元官网网址� some not described B次元官网网址� that itB次元官网网址檚 going to make really cool research projects for a lot of students at UBC too,B次元官网网址� Byers said.
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