Smithsonian Institution NMNH-IZ BOEM Partnership

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management - Environmental Studies Program (BOEM-ESP) funds and manages intensive environmental studies on the United States Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to provide information needed for the management of oil and gas development on the continental shelf and slope. In partnership with BOEM-ESP, the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History (NMNH-IZ) provides professional collection management services for marine invertebrates collected during these studies. More recently, this partnership has expanded to include NMNH-IZ sequencing of OCS specimens, including DNA barcoding, genome skimming, and metabarcoding.