GCBR

The Guam Center for Biodiversity Research (GCBR) was established in 2025 to combine six University of Guam biological collections under one digital and collaborative roof.

These collections include: 1) Diatoms; 2) the Herbarium; 3) Ichthyology; 4) Invertebrate Zoology; 5) Macroalgae; and 6) Tissues.

GCBR’s mission is to serve local and scientific communities by providing baseline data and surveys to understand and protect regional natural resources. We discover and document life, and disseminate our work freely. We also aim to inspire everyone to behold and cherish our diverse and complex natural world.

Curator of Crustacea

Dr. Robert Lasley's research focus is on your favorite animal—the crab. Understanding crab systematics, diversity, and speciation provides a unique window into evolution. Brachyuran (true) crabs are incredibly diverse in terms of morphology, habitat, and behavior. The largest species has been recorded at ca. 600 m depth and has a leg span of almost 4 meters. The smallest has a carapace between 2-3 mm wide and spends its adult life inside its clam host.

Crabs are unusual in having colonized land many times since their relatively recent Jurassic origin. Some have lost their marine larval stage and have invaded even montane ecosystems, where they have diversified.

Gall crabs somehow induce their coral hosts to form their dwellings. Members of several crab families have evolved a similar morphology to live as symbionts with diverse burrowing hosts like shrimp and worms.

Boxer crabs carry stinging anemones like weaponized pom poms. Crabs go everywhere. They do everything. It’s no wonder that they are the pinnacle of evolution (search “carcinization”).

Collections Manager

David Burdick serves as Collections Manager for the Guam Center for Biodiversity Research. After participating in a three-year NOAA fellowship program that began in 2004, he worked on various aspects of coral reef management, research, and monitoring while employed with the Guam Coastal Management Program.

David moved to UOG in 2013 to continue work as coordinator of Guam’s long-term coral reef monitoring program, and in 2016 began splitting his time between coral reef monitoring and collections management.

He transitioned to a full-time collections management role for the GCBR in November 2025. In addition to his core responsibilities as collections manager, he is actively involved in coral taxonomy and diversity, with a specific interest in determining the identity and conservation status of threatened corals in the Mariana Islands. His passion for marine biodiversity and underwater photography led him to create the guamreeflife.com website in his spare time, with the aim of raising awareness of the marine biodiversity of the Mariana Islands.