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1. Rapid development and digitization of the Recent mollusk collection at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville

   Slapcinsky, John; Bemis, Amanda; Portell, Roger; Auffenberg, Kurt; Paulay, Gustav (October 2025, The Nautilus)

   The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) currently houses nearly 580,000 specimen-lots of close to 3 million specimens of recent mollusks. It is one of the largest collections of its type in North America and, except for new donations, its collection data is entirely accessible online. The collection has grown rapidly since its founding in the early 20th century, especially in the past 50 years. While global in scope, the collection is especially strong in material from North and South America, the Caribbean, Madagascar, Pacific Ocean islands, and south Asia. Holdings have been greatly enriched by biodiversity surveys conducted by museum staff and research associates and by acquisition of relinquished institutional and private collections. Field collections often have linked voucher specimens, tissues, sequence data, and digital images. The FLMNH mollusk collection is an important resource for systematics, biogeography, biodiversity studies, and education. 

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2. Assessment of North American arthropod collections: prospects and challenges for addressing biodiversity research

   https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8086  

   Cobb, Neil S.; Gall, Lawrence F.; Zaspel, Jennifer M.; Dowdy, Nicolas J.; McCabe, Lindsie M.; Kawahara, Akito Y. (January 2019, PeerJ)

   Over 300 million arthropod specimens are housed in North American natural history collections. These collections represent a “vast hidden treasure trove” of biodiversity −95% of the specimen label data have yet to be transcribed for research, and less than 2% of the specimens have been imaged. Specimen labels contain crucial information to determine species distributions over time and are essential for understanding patterns of ecology and evolution, which will help assess the growing biodiversity crisis driven by global change impacts. Specimen images offer indispensable insight and data for analyses of traits, and ecological and phylogenetic patterns of biodiversity. Here, we review North American arthropod collections using two key metrics, specimen holdings and digitization efforts, to assess the potential for collections to provide needed biodiversity data. We include data from 223 arthropod collections in North America, with an emphasis on the United States. Our specific findings are as follows: (1) The majority of North American natural history collections (88%) and specimens (89%) are located in the United States. Canada has comparable holdings to the United States relative to its estimated biodiversity. Mexico has made the furthest progress in terms of digitization, but its specimen holdings should be increased to reflect the estimated higher Mexican arthropod diversity. The proportion of North American collections that has been digitized, and the number of digital records available per species, are both much lower for arthropods when compared to chordates and plants. (2) The National Science Foundation’s decade-long ADBC program (Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections) has been transformational in promoting arthropod digitization. However, even if this program became permanent, at current rates, by the year 2050 only 38% of the existing arthropod specimens would be digitized, and less than 1% would have associated digital images. (3) The number of specimens in collections has increased by approximately 1% per year over the past 30 years. We propose that this rate of increase is insufficient to provide enough data to address biodiversity research needs, and that arthropod collections should aim to triple their rate of new specimen acquisition. (4) The collections we surveyed in the United States vary broadly in a number of indicators. Collectively, there is depth and breadth, with smaller collections providing regional depth and larger collections providing greater global coverage. (5) Increased coordination across museums is needed for digitization efforts to target taxa for research and conservation goals and address long-term data needs. Two key recommendations emerge: collections should significantly increase both their specimen holdings and their digitization efforts to empower continental and global biodiversity data pipelines, and stimulate downstream research. 

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3. Digitization and the Future of Natural History Collections

   https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biz163  

   Hedrick, Brandon P; Heberling, J Mason; Meineke, Emily K; Turner, Kathryn G; Grassa, Christopher J; Park, Daniel S; Kennedy, Jonathan; Clarke, Julia A; Cook, Joseph A; Blackburn, David C; et al (February 2020, BioScience)

   Abstract Natural history collections (NHCs) are the foundation of historical baselines for assessing anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity. Along these lines, the online mobilization of specimens via digitization—the conversion of specimen data into accessible digital content—has greatly expanded the use of NHC collections across a diversity of disciplines. We broaden the current vision of digitization (Digitization 1.0)—whereby specimens are digitized within NHCs—to include new approaches that rely on digitized products rather than the physical specimen (Digitization 2.0). Digitization 2.0 builds on the data, workflows, and infrastructure produced by Digitization 1.0 to create digital-only workflows that facilitate digitization, curation, and data links, thus returning value to physical specimens by creating new layers of annotation, empowering a global community, and developing automated approaches to advance biodiversity discovery and conservation. These efforts will transform large-scale biodiversity assessments to address fundamental questions including those pertaining to critical issues of global change. 

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4. Extending mammal specimens with their essential phenotypic traits

   https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyaf062  

   McLean, Bryan S; Bloom, David; Davis, Edward B; Guralnick, Robert P; Santana, Sharlene E; Allen, Julie M; Amarilla-Stevens, Heidi; Bell, Kayce C; Blackburn, David C; Bradley, Jeffrey E; et al (July 2025, Journal of mammalogy)

   Abstract Natural history collections are repositories of biodiversity specimens that provide critical infrastructure for studies of mammals. Over the past 3 decades, digitization of collections has opened up the temporal and spatial properties of specimens, stimulating new data sharing, use, and training across the biodiversity sciences. These digital records are the cornerstones of an “extended specimen network,” in which the diverse data derived from specimens become digital, linked, and openly accessible for science and policy. However, still missing from most digital occurrences of mammals are their morphological, reproductive, and life-history traits. Unlocking this information will advance mammalogy, establish richer faunal baselines in an era of rapid environmental change, and contextualize other types of specimen-derived information toward new knowledge and discovery. Here, we present the Ranges Digitization Network (Ranges), a community effort to digitize specimen-level traits from all terrestrial mammals of western North America, append them to digital records, publish them openly in community repositories, and make them interoperable with complimentary data streams. Ranges is a consortium of 23 institutions with an initial focus on non-marine mammal species (both native and introduced) occurring in western Canada, the western United States, and Mexico. The project will establish trait data standards and informatics workflows that can be extended to other regions, taxa, and traits. Reconnecting mammalogists, museum professionals, and researchers for a new era of collections digitization will catalyze advances in mammalogy and create a community-curated trait resource for training and engagement with global conservation initiatives. 

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5. Parasitic flowering plant collections embody the extended specimen

   https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13866  

   Teixeira‐Costa, Luiza; Heberling, J. Mason; Wilson, Carol A.; Davis, Charles C. (January 2022, Methods in Ecology and Evolution)

   Abstract 1. The widespread digitization of natural history collections, combined with novel tools and approaches is revolutionizing biodiversity science. The ‘extended specimen’ concept advocates a more holistic approach in which a specimen is framed as a diverse stream of interconnected data. Herbarium specimens that by their very nature capture multispecies relationships, such as certain parasites, fungi and lichens, hold great potential to provide a broader and more integrative view of the ecology and evolution of symbiotic interactions. This particularly ap- plies to parasite–host associations, which owing to their interconnectedness are especially vulnerable to global environmental change. 2. Here, we present an overview of how parasitic flowering plants is represented in herbarium collections. We then discuss the variety of data that can be gathered from parasitic plant specimens, and how they can be used to understand global change impacts at multiple scales. Finally, we review best practices for sampling parasitic plants in the field, and subsequently preparing and digitizing these specimens. 3. Plant parasitism has evolved 12 times within angiosperms, and similar to other plant taxa, herbarium collections represent the foundation for analysing key aspects of their ecology and evolution. Yet these collections hold far greater potential. Data and metadata obtained from parasitic plant specimens can inform analyses of co-distribution patterns, changes in eco-physiology and species plasticity spanning temporal and spatial scales, chemical ecology of tripartite interactions (e.g. host–parasite–herbivore), and molecular data critical for species conservation. Moreover, owing to the historic nature and sheer size of global herbarium collections, these data provide the spatiotemporal breadth essential for investigating organismal response to global change. 4. Parasitic plant specimens are primed to serve as ideal examples of extended specimen concept and help motivate the next generation of creative and impactful collection-based science. Continued digitization efforts and improved curatorial practices will contribute to opening these specimens to a broader audience, allowing integrative research spanning multiple domains and offering novel opportunities for education. 

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