Dr. Richard Brusca of the San Diego Natural History Museum is nearing completion of a series of monographs documenting the marine isopods of the tropical eastern Pacific. His current project, a study of the genus Rocinela using scanning electron microscopy, will bring his analysis of the suborders Valvifera and Flabellifera to completion. Members of this genus are parasitic on fishes, and are poorly represented in most museum collections. Dr. Brusca has assembled an unprecedented array of new samples for study. The proposed monograph will add significantly to our understanding of the evolution and ecology of tropical marine organisms. The completion of this monographic series will have implications beyond the concerns of crustacean specialists. Marine ecologists will have new and reliable identification guides. Evolutionary and biogeographic studies will use the monographs as a basis for studying important processes in an oceanographically and historically complex part of the world.
