Diversity

The world hotspot for crayfish species, by a long, long way, is the southeastern United States (map from Richman et al. 2015).

The southeastern U.S. is also notable for relatively large populations of African-Americans.

You might think that given the overlap in these two maps, that there would be expertise in the African-American community about crayfish. But I am struggling to think of any African-American scientist who has studied crayfish. Who am I missing?

This also points to crayfish being a great entry point to introduce African-Americans to topics like biology and conservation.

Reference

Richman, NI, Böhm, M, Adams, SB, Alvarez, F, Bergey, EA, Bunn, JJS, Burnham, Q, Cordeiro, J, Coughran, J, Crandall, KA, Dawkins, KL, Distefano, RJ, Doran, NE, Edsman, L, Eversole, AG, Füreder, L, Furse, JM, Gherardi, F, Hamr, P, Holdich, DM, Horwitz, P, Johnston, K, Jones, CM, Jones, JPG, Jones, RL, Jones, TG, Kawai, T, Lawler, S, López-Mejía, M, Miller, RM, Pedraza-Lara, C, Reynolds, JD, Richardson, AMM, Schultz, MB, Schuster, GA, Sibley, PJ, Souty-Grosset, C, Taylor, CA, Thoma, RF, Walls, J, Walsh, TS, Collen, B. 2015. Multiple drivers of decline in the global status of freshwater crayfish (Decapoda: Astacidea). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 370: 20140060.

External link

African-American History Month

Map of African-American distribution from here.