Interdisciplinary research programs are currently being carried out in the Caribbean Sea off Belize and along the coast of Florida at the Smithsonian Marine Station at Ft. The work of the Department is complemented by Research Associates, students, and visitors from other museums and academic institutions. In recent years visiting Research Associates and postdoctoral fellows, in residence for up to a year, have studied amphipods, leeches, tardigrades, bryozoans, polychaetes, nematodes, ostracods, parasitic copepods, spider crabs, gastropods, nudibranchs, cephalopods, flatworms, sea-stars, sea cucumbers, brittlestars, corals and gorgonians. In addition, two research scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce are resident in the Department, carrying out research on commercially important crustaceans and mollusks. Departmental research is strengthened by cooperative graduate education programs with George Washington University, the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami, American University, and George Mason University.
Arrangements are also possible with other universities or on an individual or departmental basis.
Under such agreements graduate students come to the museum to study material in the collections and to carry out research under the supervision of our scientific staff. The Department's specimen collections are an irreplaceable resource, with some of the specimens collected about 150 years ago. By reference and comparison with the existing material in the collections, scientists can determine if material they hold is undescribed, or is an already named species. Data can be extracted from the collections on fauna and habitats from sites that no longer exist. Information on defined geographic areas can give a picture of both past and present biodiversity, and from multiple records we can see how the distribution of species has changed with time.