September-December, 2012 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 31 Nos. 3-4 
10 SEPTEMBER 2012, CRUSTACEANS - GUEST SPEAKER DR. GARY POORE, 
NHMLAC 
Attendance: Dr. Gary Poore, Museum Vietoria, Australia; Ron Velarde, Katie Beauehamp, Tim 
Stebbins, CSD; Don Cadien, Larry Lovell, LACSD; Miehael Vendraseo, OCSD; Dean Pasko, 
eonsultant; Tony Phillips, eonsultant; 
Carol Paquette, MBC; Leslie Harris, 
Adam Wall, Mark LeBlane, Maria 
Peltekova, Phyllis Sun, Giovani 
Zelada, Dean Penteheff, NHMLAC 
The meeting was opened by President 
Larry Lovell and began with a round 
of introduetions sinee we had many new faees in attendanee. Larry then eovered upeoming 
meetings and shortly thereafter Dr. Gary Poore was introdueed. Dr. Poore has been a eurator of 
erustaeea at the Museum Vietoria for 30 years. His researeh has eovered Port Phillip Bay, as well 
as shallower and deeper waters. There are no extensive minutes from this meeting, but below are 
a few of the questions Gary addressed in his presentation. 
He started with a question eoneeming estimating erustaeean biodiversity: are we there yet? How 
do we get there? The Census of Marine Life Projeet is trying to answer the question of how many 
speeies are in the oeean. There are other and various good projeets, but not mueh progress has 
been made on answering the question. There are multiple approaehes to estimating biodiversity, 
but the methods rely on existing data, and are the data reliable? 
22 OCTOBER 2012, SPONGES - GUEST SPEAKER DAVE ELVIN, NHMLAC 
Attendance: Megan Lilly, CSD; Laura Terriquez, Ken Sakamoto, OCSD; Carol Paquette, 
MBC; Don Cadien, LACSD; Lisa Gilbane, Bureau of Oeean Energy Management; Greg Lyon, 
CLAEMD; Eeslie Harris, NHMLAC; Dave Elvin, eonsultant; Dean Pasko, eonsultant 
Eeslie opened the meeting with business announeements. She started by diseussing upeoming 
meetings. There will be no x-mas party this year and SCAMIT is planning a summer beaeh BBQ 
next year, probably in the Corona del Mar area. SCAMIT will have a symposium next year at 
the SCAS meetings in May and the listed speakers to date are: Tim Stebbins and Don Cadien, 
who will be speaking on the deep benthie study. Eeslie Harris, who will be giving a talk on 
eooperation amongst taxonomists for invasive speeies and diseussing error rates in taxonomy. 
Other topie suggestions were; the history of SCAMIT; the taxonomy database projeet; taxonomy 
and bareoding. Eastly, Don wanted to let everyone present know that all of the Haneoek Paeifie 
Expeditions publieations are on-line for free at the Biodiversity Heritage Eibrary. 
With the business announeements eomplete Eeslie introdueed our guest speaker for the day, 
Dave Elvin. Dave started his marine biology eareer in the late 1950’s as a volunteer at the 
California Aeademy of Seienees. He then did a stint in the army and after his military serviee, 
went on to work in the Yale Peabody invertebrate eolleetions. From there he went on to graduate 
sehool at Oregon State at the Hatfield Marine station. After eompleting grad sehool he beeame 
a zoology department faeulty at the University of Vermont. He eventually left aeademia and 
formed Vermont Information Systems - he works on a visual identifieation system for marine 
invertebrates. Some of this work was done at MBARI and was based on ROV studies. He has 
many other projeets and is eurrently developing the Oregon Marine Porifera Projeet (OMPP). 
2 
UPCOMING MEETINGS 
Visit the SCAMIT website at: www.seamit.org for the 
latest upeoming meetings announeements. 
Publication Date: 6 July 2016 
