An official website of the United States government
Biodiversity is the word used to describe the rich variety of life on Earth. Right now, Earth’s biodiversity is threatened. Museums, zoos, and other kinds of natural history collections help to protect biodiversity. One way they do this is by helping researchers study life on Earth. Another way is by teaching people, through exhibits and events. Natural history collections face many challenges. One challenge is getting enough money to stay open. Another is finding new space as collections grow. Finally, some people who want to use and learn from collections cannot access them because they are not nearby. Museum collections are now putting information on the internet, so that many people can access and use it. We can all help natural history collections to continue protecting Earth’s biodiversity by visiting them, volunteering, and donating specimens or other resources.
more »
« less
Bridging the Research Gap between Live Collections in Zoos and Preserved Collections in Natural History Museums
Abstract Zoos and natural history museums are both collections-based institutions with important missions in biodiversity research and education. Animals in zoos are a repository and living record of the world's biodiversity, whereas natural history museums are a permanent historical record of snapshots of biodiversity in time. Surprisingly, despite significant overlap in institutional missions, formal partnerships between these institution types are infrequent. Life history information, pedigrees, and medical records maintained at zoos should be seen as complementary to historical records of morphology, genetics, and distribution kept at museums. Through examining both institution types, we synthesize the benefits and challenges of cross-institutional exchanges and propose actions to increase the dialog between zoos and museums. With a growing recognition of the importance of collections to the advancement of scientific research and discovery, a transformational impact could be made with long-term investments in connecting the institutions that are caretakers of living and preserved animals.
more »
« less
- PAR ID:
- 10330745
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- BioScience
- Volume:
- 72
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 0006-3568
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 449 to 460
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract There have been repeated calls in the US for scientists to communicate the importance of biological collections to both a general public audience and to policy makers. Natural history museums that house both collections and research staff while maintaining online media presences, are well positioned to communicate that value. Our study aims to understand how these museums present themselves and their research and collections via YouTube. We created a standardized and repeatable 15-question codebook to categorize content and production choices in museum account YouTube posts. In total, we analyzed 437 videos posted by 28 natural history museums in the US in 2019 and 2023, showing that messages featuring museum science are uncommon. Instead, YouTube users are likely to encounter live event recordings or promotional content related to museum or exhibit information. Research and collections themed content represents an opportunity gap for museums to engage YouTube audiences in science. If natural history museums that maintain both collections and research staff want to answer the repeated calls of communicating the importance of collections in research, then we recommend either (1) incorporating research and collections into their other video types, and/or (2) looking to other YouTube channels, some of which are subsidiary to museum institutional accounts, as a model for research and collections content strategies.more » « less
-
Evans, Alistair; Peecook, Brandon; Bai, Bin; Benito, Juan; Capobianco, Alessio; Chapelle, Kimberley; Chiarenza, Alfio; Davis, Brian; Delcourt, Rafael; Ehret, Dana (Ed.)Interpretations of extinct vertebrate anatomy, behavior, and life history are built upon comparative anatomy data from neontological collections. Ideally, these interpretations are informed by metadata collected while the organism was alive such as diet, mass throughout life, social relationships, and reproductive history. Unfortunately, these data are not available for many specimens as natural history collections have focused on wild-caught individuals for which mass at collection, sex, and collection locality are typically the only associated data. In contrast, extensive life-history data are collected from organisms in sustained human care, but transferring these data from zoos to natural history collections is not standardized or prioritized. The Duke Lemur Center (DLC) has been designing a database that allows researchers access to morphological and life-history data derived from animals that were part of the living research colony. The DLC is home to over 200 lemurs representing 16 different species. The colony has access to open air, multi-acre habitats. For over 50 years the AZA-accredited DLC has been a platform for non-invasive research on strepsirrhine primates and the DLC Museum is the repository for DLC specimens and fossils related to the evolution of primates. The colony’s breeding records, veterinary care, husbandry data, locomotor behaviors, and diets are recorded by researchers and staff. However, these data are disaggregated, making it difficult to explore. The DLC Data Team started by generating microCT scans of the osteology and frozen cadaver collection to make morphological data available on MorphoSource. Preserved specimens were rehoused and inventoried. Now we are using DLC-developed REDCap database management tools to network scans with life-history records, building a database that researchers can use to explore questions such as individual variation in tooth wear, osteological signatures of different pathologies, and individual biomechanical performance. The REDCap database is also used to store fossil metadata like field notes and specimen preparation records. Our goal is to make these database tools available to other living colonies and natural history collections, so life-history data can be shared and standardized across institutions. This effort – in collaboration with the ZooMu network – will ultimately make life histories accessible to researchers – including paleontologists exploring the fossil record.more » « less
-
Leal, JH; Bieler, R (Ed.)Among biocollections, mollusks are a particularly powerful resource for a wide range of studies, including biogeography, conservation, ecology, environmental monitoring, evolutionary biology, and systematics. U.S. mollusk collections are housed in stand-alone natural history museums, at universities, and in a variety of governmental and non-governmental institutions. Differing in their histories, specializations, and uses, they share common needs for long-term development, and collectively contribute to biodiversity knowledge at regional, national, and global scales. Commitment by dedicated staff, collectors, and volunteers, institutional investments, philanthropy, and governmental funding have built and maintained these collections and their support infrastructure. Efforts by the North American malacological collection community since the early 1970s led to coordination in database design but left the data isolated in individual institutions. Collection digitization developed through a combination of individual/institutional initiatives and federally supported projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Advances in digital technology enabled the shift toward nationally and globally unified collections. Networking and collaboration were greatly accelerated by NSF’s Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections (ADBC) program, which created a central coordinating organization (iDigBio) and funded Thematic Collections Network (TCN) projects. One such TCN was developed to mobilize nearly 90% of the known U.S. museum-collections-based data of the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts (Mobilizing Millions of Marine Mollusks of the Eastern Seaboard—ESB). The project, involving 16 museum collections (plus the Smithsonian Institution as federal partner), combines data from approximately 4.5 million specimens collected from the ESB region and makes them available to the TCN portal InvertEBase and other aggregators such as iDigBio and GBIF. In addition to fostering community and expanding the corpus of available digitized mollusk records through new data entry and georeferencing (GEOLocate, CoGe) and standardizing taxonomy, the project drove key innovations for the invertebrate collections community. For instance, it worked with the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) group to create a new Darwin Core standard term, “Vitality”, expanded GEOLocate to support complex geospatial types, integrated global elevation and bathymetric datasets directly into georeferencing workflow, and developed various education and outreach public outreach products. Synthesizing from the 15 following articles with individual histories of ESB-participating mollusk collections, several topics are discussed—such as what defines a “good” mollusk collection in the digital age and the importance of federal support for this national resource.more » « less
-
Among biocollections, mollusks are a particularly powerful resource for a wide range of studies, including biogeography, conservation, ecology, environmental monitoring, evolutionary biology, and systematics. U.S. mollusk collections are housed in stand-alone natural history museums, at universities, and in a variety of governmental and non-governmental institutions. Differing in their histories, specializations, and uses, they share common needs for long-term development, and collectively contribute to biodiversity knowledge at regional, national, and global scales. Commitment by dedicated staff, collectors, and volunteers, institutional investments, philanthropy, and governmental funding have built and maintained these collections and their support infrastructure. Efforts by the North American malacological collection community since the early 1970s led to coordination in database design but left the data isolated in individual institutions. Collection digitization developed through a combination of individual/institutional initiatives and federally supported projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Advances in digital technology enabled the shift toward nationally and globally unified collections. Networking and collaboration were greatly accelerated by NSF’s Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections (ADBC) program, which created a central coordinating organization (iDigBio) and funded Thematic Collections Network (TCN) projects. One such TCN was developed to mobilize nearly 90% of the known U.S. museum-collections-based data of the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts (Mobilizing Millions of Marine Mollusks of the Eastern Seaboard—ESB). The project, involving 16 museum collections (plus the Smithsonian Institution as federal partner), combines data from approximately 4.5 million specimens collected from the ESB region and makes them available to the TCN portal InvertEBase and other aggregators such as iDigBio and GBIF. In addition to fostering community and expanding the corpus of available digitized mollusk records through new data entry and georeferencing (GEOLocate, CoGe) and standardizing taxonomy, the project drove key innovations for the invertebrate collections community. For instance, it worked with the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) group to create a new Darwin Core standard term, “Vitality”, expanded GEOLocate to support complex geospatial types, integrated global elevation and bathymetric datasets directly into georeferencing workflow, and developed various education and outreach public outreach products. Synthesizing from the 15 following articles with individual histories of ESB-participating mollusk collections, several topics are discussed—such as what defines a “good” mollusk collection in the digital age and the importance of federal support for this national resource.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biac022
