About This Project

In scientific history, aquatic isopods have been an overlooked taxa. Recently there has been a breakthrough in aquatic isopod phylogenetics that has shown that in the Eastern United States there is higher diversity than previously thought. This study aims to provide much more genetic coverage of Californian aquatic isopods to investigate the possible hidden diversity of California. Due to their highly endemic nature we hypothesize that similar diversity will be reflected in California.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

In 2023 a large-scale revision of Eastern North American aquatic isopods was published by Dr. Julian "Jerry" Lewis and a team of collaborators describing 24 new species of aquatic isopod (https://www.researchgate.net/p...). Since 2023 many more have been published or are in the progress of being published with new phylogenetic and morphological data available. Although this is exciting, no such large scale investigations are being done in the West where we have interesting endemic isopod genera like Calasellus, Salmasellus, Oregonasellus, and Bowmanasellus. In California Calasellus, Bowmanasellus, and Caecidotea are currently known to exist but very little genetic work has been done. We hypothesize that there is much more diversity than we currently know about.

What is the significance of this project?

The realm of systematics is important because it includes the discipline of taxonomy and is what is used to describe new species. Aquatic isopods are threatened by a multitude of factors but nothing can be protected if it has not been investigated and doesn't have a scientific name. We will describe any new species discovered increasing our knowledge of endemic Californian species.

By understanding the distribution and phylogeography of these organisms we can also make evolutionary inferences regarding why they are distributed the way they are or how certain traits may have been advantageous to their survival.

Aquatic isopods can also be great indicator species that need certain water parameters to live. Many of these species live in groundwaters, springs, and seeps, and can be sensitive to change making them good indicator species. By having a greater baseline understanding of their distribution we can monitor their population status and secondarily monitor the water parameters.

What are the goals of the project?

The goals of this project would be to collect members of Calasellus, Bowmanasellus, and Caecidotea from as many localities (at least 20 identified survey locations) as we can during our research trip to describe any species that need description and to greater our knowledge of North American asellid evolution.

After collecting from the 20 localities across northern California, a morphological analysis, and phylogenetic analysis, we aim to describe anything that warrants description.