A heat map of marine species observed around Galiano during the Pacific Marine Life Surveys (1968–2018)

Andy Lamb, author of Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest, and Donna Gibbs, a research diver with Ocean Wise, have been diving the waters around Galiano Island since the 1960s. Recently we received a massive influx of over 18,000 occurrence records from these dives, carefully catalogued by Donna and Charlie Gibbs.

These records represent over 600 species of algae, kelp, sponges, cnidarians, molluscs, echinoderms, tunicates, fish and more. We are currently in the process of reviewing these records and integrating them with the Biodiversity Galiano dataset. This significant contribution to the project will be formalized in 2020 with the publication of a data paper summarizing both the terrestrial and marine diversity of Galiano Island, BC.