- By Billy Kepner
- Entertainment
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The Museum of the Earth will be opening its newest temporary exhibition, Science on the Half Shell: How and Why We Study Evolution, on September 24th, 2010. This exhibition is made possible through a multimillion-dollar award from the National Science Foundation’s Assembling the Tree of Life Program to study the evolution of bivalves. The Museum of the Earth, in conjunction with the Field Museum of Natural History and Harvard University, are the lead recipients of this grant. Bivalves (clams, oysters, mussels, scallops, etc.) are a diverse and familiar group of mollusks with an old and well-preserved fossil record, important ecological roles in marine and freshwater ecosystems, and economic roles including fisheries, the ornament industry, and health sciences. With 20,000-30,000 living species, bivalves are the second largest class of living mollusks, which in turn form the second largest animal phylum and the largest in the sea.
Despite the ubiquitousness of bivalves, past efforts to study and understand their evolution have been poorly coordinated. This project takes an in-depth look at bivalve anatomy, emphasizing gills, the stomach, shell ultrastructure, and sperm, and will sequence 10-12 selected molecules (genes) for the same set of approximately 300 species.
Dr. Paula Mikkelsen, PRI’s Associate Director for Science and one of the Principal Investigators on the NSF grant, explains “This exhibition gives us an opportunity to show visitors what evolutionary biologists do in the field and in the laboratory every day – using tools ranging from a simple sieve to a sophisticated CT scan – plus a little bit of why ordinary clams are such extraordinary animals.”
This exhibition emphasizes evolution and its many components (including diversity, taxonomy, biogeography, speciation) using bivalves – a group of organisms that is morphologically “simple,” familiar, and attractive, diverse enough to show examples of many different kinds of evolutionary processes, easy to obtain, and represented by an ample fossil record. After the exhibition’s run at the Museum of the Earth, it will travel around the country with stops scheduled at Harvard and the Field Museum in Chicago.
An evening opening reception will take place on September 24th, 2010 from 6:30PM-8:30PM. Guests will have the opportunity to socialize with friends, meet the scientists, and be among the first to see the exhibition. The event will feature a raw bar and other delectables from Maxie’s Supper Club and wine from Atwater Estate Vineyards.
On September 25th, there will also be a Family Day celebration, where kids and their families can explore living and fossil bivalves and this new exciting exhibition.
Science on the Half Shell: How and Why We Study Evolution will be on display at the Museum of the Earth from September 24, 2010 through January 17, 2011. Accompanying the exhibition will be an art exhibit entitled, Enduring Shells: Bivalves and Other Mollusks, a collection of 10 drawings of mollusks created by Groton, NY artist Marla Coppolino.
The National Science Foundation was awarded to Dr. Paula M. Mikkelsen of the Paleontological Research Institution (Ithaca, New York), Dr. Rüdiger Bieler of the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago, Illinois), Dr. Gonzalo Giribet of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts), and twelve other international collaborators. A second NSF research grant to Dr. Scott Steppan at Florida State University (also involving Drs. Bieler and Mikkelsen) provided additional funding for the exhibition.
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