Mapping the Mollusk Family Tree in Moreton Bay, Australia Go digging for clams with Field Museum Curator and zoologist, Dr. Rüdiger Bieler and his international team of scientists as they study the evolution of mollusks—the largest group of animals in the oceans and the second largest animal group in the world! You’ll discover how mapping out the relationships between bivalve mollusks like clams and scallops helps us to understand evolutionary pathways and track the development of genes over time. For the past year, Dr. Bieler and his colleagues have been searching the seas off the coast of Europe, the Mediterranean, the Florida Keys, the Philippines, and Bermuda to collect many of the 280 species that have been targeted for the Bivalve Tree of Life project. Called “BivAToL,” this project will reconstruct the evolutionary family tree for bivalve mollusks, which include clams, oysters, mussels, scallops, and their relatives. Join Dr. Bieler and his team as their next expedition leads them to Moreton Bay, Australia, where they plan to recover shallow- and deep-water bivalves, learn more about how they have evolved, and later map their relationships with one another. To discover more about the BivAToL project, select from the topics below. Bivalve Basics The BivAToL Project Collecting at Moreton Bay Special Thanks