Dr. David C. Campbell

Associate Professor of Geology, Department of Natural Sciences

Dr. Campbell presented a talk titled “Errare humanum et machinarum est: Afraid of Bad Big Data” on August 2, 2022, at the American Scientific Affiliation meeting at Point Loma Nazarene University. He also co-authored a talk presented by Timothy Campbellon the previous day at the same meeting: “A Shell Game: Using Past Mollusks to Inform the Future”.

Dr. Campbell also had a poem titled “Just, in Time” published in the Summer 2022 edition of God and Nature.

Previous Recognition

October 2021

Dr. Campbell co-authored a paper with colleagues from Illinois and Kentucky, using DNA data to confirm the presence of a freshwater mussel species in Illinois, when it was previously not confirmed north of Arkansas: A. P. Stodola, C. Lydeard, J. T. Lamer, S. A. Douglass, K. S. Cummings, & D. Campbell. 2021. Hiding In Plain Sight: Genetic Confirmation of Putative Louisiana Fatmucket Lampsilis hydiana (Mollusca: Unionidae) in Illinois. Freshwater Mollusk Biology and Conservation 24:59–86.

April 2021

Via Zoom, Dr. Campbell presented talks at three meetings this spring.  At the Southeastern Section meeting, Geological Society of America, he presented a talk titled “Who’s Afraid of Bad Big Data? Confusion and Coverage in the Coastal Plain of the Carolinas.” The talk was coauthored with Timothy Campbell and presented on 1 April 2021.  It discussed challenges and errors in online databases about fossils.  At the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society virtual meeting on April 13, he presented a talk titled “Stable Habitat in a Dynamic Landscape: Geomorphology and Freshwater Mollusk Radiations.”  The talk used recent studies on uplift in the southern Appalachians to propose a possible explanation for the extremely high diversity of freshwater animals in the southeast. The third talk was presented at the American Malacological Society meeting on June 17, titled “Will the Real Mytilus incrassatus Please Stand Up?”.  It highlighted the confusion resulting from five different authors in the first half of the 1800’s naming a new species Mytilus incrassatus, and further bibliographic complications that turned up in investigating the five names. 

March 2021

Several faculty members from the Department of Natural Sciences collaborated on two presentations at the Association of Southeastern Biologists meeting in Little Rock, Arkansas on March 30-April 1.  Dr. Rowe, Dr. Judge, and Dr. Campbell co-authored a poster titled “SERP GPS: Gardner-Webb PULSE Strategy – Recalibrating”, reporting on progress in implementing ideas for improving instruction and student integration into the department.  Dr. Eddins and Dr. Campbell co-authored an oral presentation titled “CURE in General Science: Weather Investigation”, on integrating research into a class.  The presentations at the meeting were given by Dr. Campbell. 

August 2019

Dr. Campbell presented a talk at the World Congress of Malacology in Pacific Grove, California in early August titled “Placing peculiar planorbids of the Pacific Northwest,” based on DNA analyses of some unusual freshwater snails.  The talk was co-authored with Dr. Charles Lydeard.  Dr. Campbell was also a co-author, along with Timothy Campbell and Dr. Lyle Campbell, of a talk at the same meeting titled “What’s dug up at Old Dock 2.”  This was presented by Timothy Campbell and discussed over 300 species of fossil shells that they found at a small quarry near Wilmington, NC.  The trip also provided an opportunity to visit the San Andreas Fault zone and see some non-mollusks such as condors and blue whales.

March 2019

Dr. Campbell is a co-author (doing the DNA work) of an article: Lyubov E. Burlakova, David Campbell & Alexander Y. Karatayev. 2019. “Status of rare endemic species: Molecular phylogeny, distribution and conservation of freshwater molluscs Truncilla macrodon and Truncilla cognata in Texas”. Malacologia 62(2):345-363.  It’s an ecological and DNA sequence analysis of mussels from central and southern Texas.  Our data confirm that Truncilla cognata is a distinct species found only in the Rio Grande system, making it a high conservation priority, especially as it may be affected by border activity and water use.  Similarly, T. macrodon is confined to central Texas, different from the more widespread species in the Mississippi River drainage and nearby rivers.

Also, Dr. Campbell is the author of the chapter “Family Semisulcospiridae” in the book Freshwater Mollusks of the World: A Distribution Atlas, edited by Charles Lydeard and Kevin Cummings, which is forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press.  The Semisulcospiridae is a family of snails found in northwestern North America and eastern Asia.  Some species are imperiled; others are important hosts of parasites. 

April 2018

Dr. Campbell co-authored the article “Taxonomy based on Science is necessary for Global Conservation.” For a complete list of the 184 contributors from 37 countries and 171 institutions, click the link: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2005075