{"id":346600,"date":"2021-06-24T06:02:52","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T20:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=346600"},"modified":"2021-06-24T06:02:52","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T20:02:52","slug":"uog-biorepository-receives-30000-specimen-coral-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/uog-biorepository-receives-30000-specimen-coral-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"UOG Biorepository receives 30,000-specimen coral collection"},"content":{"rendered":"
University of Guam\u00a0professor emeritus of Marine Biology Richard Randall holds a coral specimen that may be an undescribed species. The specimen is one of 30,000 in Randall\u2019s private collection that he is turning over to the GECCO Biorepository at the UOG Marine Laboratory.\u00a0(UOG)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A biorepository of Micronesian marine specimens at the University of Guam Marine Laboratory is welcoming its largest addition yet\u2014a private collection of around 30,000 coral specimens from Richard Randall, a UOG professor emeritus of marine biology.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The facility\u2014the\u00a0Guam Ecosystems Collaboratorium for Corals and Oceans (GECCO) Biorepository\u2014is both a physical and cyber warehouse of records and images that is operated by the\u00a0Guam EPSCoR\u00a0program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Randall\u2019s collection includes specimens from Guam and throughout the Pacific and reflects the 56 years he spent at the UOG Marine Laboratory researching coral reef biology and geology.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an impressive collection that\u2019s really important for us to take care of and share with the world and try to use it to provide an impetus for collaborative research,\u201d said David Burdick, the biorepository\u2019s collections manager.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the late 1960s, Randall witnessed the first crown-of-thorns starfish outbreak in Guam and managed to retrieve a few coral samples before they were eaten. He claims some of the specimens in his collection may be new species, and others may no longer exist.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"
David Burdick, the collections manager of the GECCO Biorepository, holds a specimen from Randall\u2019s coral collection.\u00a0(UOG)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIn some cases, if he\u2019s described a new species, we\u2019d have to publish in a book or a journal about it [to officially establish it as a new species],\u201d Burdick said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re always trying to play catch-up trying to understand more about these organisms before we lose some of them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Randall took meticulous field notes about each of the specimens, Burdick said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe recorded an unusual amount of data, like where it was living, its name, and how much light it was exposed to, and how that may have influenced its shape. That information can help us understand their habitat requirements and discern between similar species,\u201d Burdick said.<\/p>\n

So far, the facility has received less than one-tenth of the collection, and it may take years to catalog each item and upload them to the GECCO Biorepository\u2019s online database.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we\u2019re going through all of the coral specimens and cataloging the ones we have,\u201d said Kelsie Ebeling-Whited, the biorepository\u2019s technician. \u201cWe log the specimen number, the note number, its species and family. We want that all in a database so that we know what corals we have [in Guam and the region].\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once the collection has been processed, it will serve as a resource for researchers around the world to reference and better understand the diversity of the corals found in the Pacific. The collection will also be accessible to the public as it\u2019s added to the biorepository\u2019s online database\u00a0at\u00a0https:\/\/specifyportal.uog.edu\/.\u00a0(PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A biorepository of Micronesian marine specimens at the University of Guam Marine Laboratory is welcoming…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":346603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}